


Endgame

by Beserk



Series: An Ineffective Cure For Evil [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:04:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beserk/pseuds/Beserk





	1. The Futility of Holding on To the Past

_Never love something so much that you can’t let go of it_

_-Ginni Rometty_

"You have your mother's eyes," Snape says, eyes wide with wonder. He blinks, crawling forward, gingerly, as if he's afraid to scare Harry off. It makes him incredibly uncomfortable.

"I've been told," Harry mumbles, sitting down on the floor, quite far from Snape. He tries to calm himself, tries to remind himself that he's seen and participated in more than one interrogation. This shouldn't be any different.

It's not an effective technique

Snape smiles a reminiscing smile, the kind of smile Harry's seen on his father's face when talking about his time at Hogwarts. It's incredibly disturbing to see it on the face of the man who stalked his mother.

"I'll talk, to you, Lily's son, but only you. Dumbledore will have to leave."

Harry tuns to look at Dumbledore, who watches them with a tilt of the head. After a moment he nods and walks away without a word.

Harry looks down at his hands, trying to ignore the eyes piercing into him, studying him, dissecting him, trying to catch a glimpse of his green eyes. _You have your mother's eyes._

People often tell Harry that. His father used to whisper it to him when he put him to sleep as a child, Remus sometimes blurts it out with a shake of the head, as if he can't believe just how similar Harry is to Lily. Usually hearing this fills Harry with pride, and glee at the proof that his mother isn’t completely gone, that a part of her lives on in Harry and always will.

It's never made him feel _dirty_ before. It's never made him feel like someone would rather he became his mother, would rather he just disappear into those eyes that are so like Lily Evans'.

Harry fidgets on the ground. He has to physically force himself to stay in place, to not get up and run after the professor and tell that he's sorry, but he can't do it, can't face this man.

What stops him is the knowledge, the very painful knowledge, that Dumbledore won't be angry, not even a bit. He'd just be disappointed.

Harry hates disappointing Dumbledore. So he stays in place, not moving as Dumbledore's smell fades away. It's only then that Snape speaks.

"I knew your mother-"

"I heard," Harry interrupts curtly, and Snape's eyes grow cold.

"Rude, just like your father," He sneers, his expression so hateful Harry pushes himself backwards against the wall.

"No one's ever called my father rude in front of me before," Harry mumbles.

"Rude and proud," The prisoner snaps.

"Proud I've heard," Harry replies dryly, and the man flares up again, but now Harry isn't scared. He's figured Snape out. He's just a pathetic little man living in an imaginary past that never existed. "You wanted to talk, so talk."

Snape shakes his head, sneering, "You're just like your father."

"So, you don’t want to talk? Should I get Dumbledore?"

" _Dumbledore_ ," Snape grins a malicious smile. "Do you always run to Dumbledore for assistance?"

_Good question._

"When I need his assistance," Harry replies evenly.

Snape raises an eyebrow, "Well? Do you need his assistance now?"

Harry shrugs, "I suppose that goes back to my first question. Are you going to talk to me or not? Because if you aren't, then I'll need Dumbledore's assistance now."

Snape tilts his head, as if considering his options. His eyes are full of bitter disappointment as he takes Harry in. Clearly, seeing how similar Harry is to his father had crushed something inside of him.

"Why do you hate my father so much?" Harry asks.

Snape's eyes grow cold. Well, they grow colder.

 "Don’t I have reason enough?" He sneers.

Harry shakes his head, "My mother chose my father."

Snape glares, and Harry persists.

"She must have had a reason."

Snape snorts, "He was always very convincing, that James Potter."

"You knew him, before?" Harry doesn't try to hide his genuine curiosity.

Snape hesitates, then nods slowly, "We went to Hogwarts together."

Harry frowns, "Really?"

"Really," Snape replies dryly. "I'm sure you heard a lot about your father's time in Hogwarts. All his little charming _pranks_. Perfect little Potter, always getting away with everything. Dumbledore always let him get away with everything."

 _And you never could, could you?_ Harry thinks. _I bet you could never get away with anything_. But he doesn’t say that. He can tell it would be a bad idea to continue discussing his father. The hatred in the man's eyes warn him off that topic of conversation. Instead he says, "You don't seem to be a big fan of Dumbledore."

Snape's eyes flicker away from Harry and go up to the stone ceiling, "Does that surprise you, Potter? I'm a Death Eater."

"He was your teacher. I don't understand how you could betray him like this."

"You don’t?" Snape snorts, still not looking at Harry. "No, you won’t, would you?"

Harry sits up straighter, "I know he can be…frustrating to deal with. B-"

The prisoner lets out a hollow laughter, "You really don't know anything about him, do you?"

"What are you-" Harry shakes his head. "Never mind."

"Not very curious, are you?"

"I'm curious," Harry snaps. "I just don’t enjoy being played with."

"Very well," Intense eyes move back to Harry. "No games. I will tell you about Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore, and when I'm done you can decide if you still want to fight on Dumbledore's side. If you do, then I'll tell you where Voldemort is."

***

The sound of the dead phone line rings in Ginny's ear. Fear is tickling down her spine as she looks up to see Sirius rushing closer, holding both Susan and Teddy in his hands.

"Do you think-" She starts, but then shakes her head, unable to say the words.

Sirius swallows, the hair around his face strikingly black against his pale skin, and he says, "He'll be fine, he's stronger then he seems."

Teddy and Ginny stare at him, both hanging on his words, wanting to believe his reassurance. She can tell Teddy shares her difficulty with doing so.

Charlie and Hermione come into the kitchen along with Ginny's dad and a few others. Arthur puts a hand on Ginny's shoulder and says quietly, "We have to contract Dumbledore."

"We have no idea _where_ Dumbledore is," Hermione replies calmly, which is good, because someone needs to keep their heads on their shoulders. Ginny's feels like it's about to explode. 'Forget Dumbledore, we need to get to Hogwarts."

"Hermione's right," Charlie says. "Luna-"

"I'll call the thestrals," Luna nods her platinum-blond head. "I'm sure they'll be happy to help us."

And she slips out of the room, followed by Charlie. James Potter takes Susan from Sirius's hands and turns to Ginny, "Ginny, call McGonagall's office, tell her Hogwarts' in danger. The rest of you, get ready to leave. Anyone who needs it, drink blood now. We need everyone in top condition."

Ginny nods and begins making the phone call as a few people start talking at once. She hears Fleur fighting with Ginny's mother about her going fight, Fleur demanding that, "I can fight even wiz a belly!" But eventually Fleur gives in to Ginny's mother's begging that she not put the baby at risk and tells Sirius she'll watch the kids. Ginny's mother asks who needs blood and then everyone stops talking at once, because they hear it to. The phone line, the only one in Hogwarts, is disconnected.

There's a moment of silence and hen James says, "Everyone _move_."

Ginny swallows and then feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns to see Hermione motioning her away. Ginny follows her friend up to their room, knowing just what Hermione wants to do.

In the room, Ginny goes straight to her bed and takes out a heavy chest from underneath. Hermione opens the chest and Ginny stares for a second at the thirty-odd guns laying in the chest.

"This feels strange," Ginny mumbles and begins taking the guns out and stuffing them in a bag Hermione holds open. "I don’t know if they'll even use it. They definitely don’t know _how_ to use guns."

"It's not rocket science, they'll figure it out," Hermione says curtly. There's something deadly in her eyes that worries Ginny. It's been there since she returned to The Burrow without Malfoy, and she isn't sure how to deal with it, she doesn’t know if she should try to comfort Hermione or if that would just end up infuriating her more. Ginny knows how frustrating it can be to be comforted when all you want is to be left alone.

But she doesn’t have the time to deal with that particular problem at the moment, so she just pushes the Hermione problem to the back of her mind and keeps pilling guns into the bag.

"And they'll use them," Hermione looks down into the bag. "They'll use the guns and blow holes into the Death Eaters, because can you imagine how angry Dumbledore will be if he learns we had an advantage and chose not to use it?" She sounds incredibly bitter and a glance up shows Ginny that she's biting her lip hard, trying to stop tears from streaming out of her shinny eyes.

"Hermione-"

 

"Come on," Hermione heaves the bag over her shoulder and gives Ginny her hand, pulling Ginny up. "Let's go show vampires how humans wage wars."

***

Gellert's private rooms in Nurmengard are around the size of four large apartments, and because he doesn’t allow anyone but Albus and himself into the room, they're also covered in dust, which Gellert doesn't seem to mind but drive Albus nearly to distraction. Having all those beautiful art pieces covered in so much dust is a crime. Usually Albus starts complaining and/or cleaning as soon as he enters the rooms, while mumbling about how ridiculous it is that Gellert cares so much for appearances and seeming so put together all the time, but his rooms are so disgusting.

At the moment, for quite obvious reasons, he's not going to start them off on one of their well-worn arguments, the ones that leave him feeling furious but also somehow calmer, as if his place in the world has somehow been reinvigorated, and so he says nothing as he stomps inside. Still, seeing a sketch of the Mona Lisa so covered in dust it's impossible to see clearly raises the usual amount of irritation in him, which joins the feelings of fury, disappointment and a large amount of self-hating already swirling inside, making him almost physically shake with repressed emotion.

Gellert is in his bedroom, sitting on his far-too large bed, legs folded on the white covers, watching a large screen on the wall which Albus hasn't seen before. His blond hair is pushes back from his face and his mismatched eyes are narrowed slightly. For a moment, Albus feels his body shiver. Why does this always happen to, why does he always remember, in the least appropriate times, how beautiful Gellert Grindelwald is? With his pale skin, golden hair and chiseled features, surrounded by all that white, he looks like an angel. He looks like _Albus's_ angel.

It suits Gellert, that his very body and form are lies, deceits. He's not an angel, he's a demon, but it's hard to remember that, sometimes, when Albus looks at him and all he can see is the charming laughter and loving hands around him, making him feel safe and warm and protected.

Gellert looks away from the screen when Albus comes in and gives a half-hearted smile that's meant to show how nonchalant and not worried he is, but instead it just allows Albus to see his vulnerability and fear. Albus feels an automatic need to go up and hold Gellert, he looks like he's in such a need of a hug.

Suppressing the need, Albus sits down on one of the enormous black leather sofas and looks at the screen, which shows an empty cell with a pair of shackles hanging in the air.

"What is that?" He asks quietly.

Gellert twirls a curl of golden hair between a finger in an oddly vulnerable movement and then says, "Snape and the Potter boy. Have you heard of video cameras?"

Albus rolls his eyes, "Yes, Gellert, I've heard of video cameras. Is there any reason you're showing me an empty cell? You do know that we can't see them, don't you?"

"Hush, love," Gellert says gently, head slightly tilted to the side, as if he's trying to stop himself from moving towards Albus. "We can't see, but we can hear. Listen."

Albus leans backwards on the sofa and closes his eyes, listening.

"Go on then, tell me," Harry's voice says, sharp and slightly afraid, even if Albus doubts Severus would be able to hear the fear.

There's a moment of silence and then Severus's voice says, "Do you know when Dumbledore tried to kill Voldemort?"

Albus jerks forward, his heart pounding in his chest. He feels fear tugging at his heart and starts to stand up, to rush out of the rooms and down to the dungeons. But as he does, a strong hand comes down to grab him and pulls him back on the sofa.

"Stop, let me up," Albus growls, and then Gellert's second hand comes up to clump down on his mouth.

"Hush, listen," Gellert mumbles.

Albus shivers, but keeps in place as Harry's voice replies, "I assume he tried to kill Riddle often." His voice is nervous but under control.

"The first time Dumbledore tried to kill Tom Riddle, he was sixteen years old."

Albus pushes at Gellert, forcing him backwards, but he doesn’t move, suddenly too terrified to get up and go down to the dungeon. So, he stays, letting Gellert's hand to remain on the back of his neck.

"You're lying," Harry says softly. "I don’t believe you."

"Nevertheless, it's the truth. When Riddle was sixteen, on his second-to-last year in Hogwarts, Dumbledore tried to kill him in the middle of the night while he was sleeping in his bed."

Gellert's nose tickles against the back of Albus's neck as Albus closes his eyes, shivering violently. _Stop talking_ , he mentally begs Severus. _Please._

"Dumbledore wouldn't try to kill a child," Harry snaps. "What kind of an idiot do you think I am, that I'd believe that?"

The indignation in Harry's voice is like a punch to Albus's gut. Realizing that Harry doesn’t believe what Severus is telling him breaks Albus's heart. It's worse then if Harry had gotten angry.

"Believe it or not, it's the truth," Severus replies, and Albus can hear he's smiling. He knows his students well enough to know that Severus is glowing inside, satisfied that he's unnerving Harry. "Dumbledore tried to kill a little boy. He tried to kill Riddle-"

"Why would he try to kill a sixteen-year-old child?" Harry growls.

Gellert arms slink over Albus's shoulders and holds him close, his face pressed against Albus's back, and Albus thinks, _this is it, this is why I can't leave him_. He can't bring himself to push Gellert away.

"Why? Why does Dumbledore do any of the things he does? For the greater good."

"I have to go down there," Albus blurts out, pushing himself up. Gellert's legs go around him, pining him in place. "Let me go, Grindelwald. Right now."

"We need to find out where Riddle is, and _you_ wanted to use the boy, so shut up and listen," Gellert sneers into his ear.

"I don't want him to hear-"

"Why do you care? It's going to be over soon, I just need you to fucking hold it together for a few moments," Gellert interrupts, curling around Albus. Albus feels like he's suffocating, like he's falling into Gellert, and it's such a comfortable and safe place to disappear into, he has to force himself to pull away, not completely, but enough so that he's not entirely overwhelmed.

"Who told you this, Riddle?" Harry asks quietly. "Because I'm not sure he's the most reliable source of information."

"And is Dumbledore? Given who he spends his time fucking?"

Albus feels Gellert stiffen against him and his hands go around him, stronger.

Harry keeps quiet for a moment and then says, "Is that all you wanted to tell me about Dumbledore, because I want to know where Riddle is now."

"I think you may be believing me now," Snape says smugly.

"Tell me where Riddle is," Harry repeats, his voice wavering slightly.

"You still want to fight for Dumbledore, knowing about his history with Riddle?"

 _Say no_ , Albus asks inwardly.

"I want to know where Riddle is," Harry says sternly.

Snape stays quiet for a moment and then says, "You still want to follow him."

He sounds as shocked as Albus feels.

"Yes," Harry replies with determination.

" _Why_?"

"That's none of your business. Tell me where Riddle is."

"Well, what day is it? What's the date?" Snape asks.

Albus frowns as Harry replies, "February 12th. Why?"

"February 12th. Then Voldemort should be at Hogwarts now."

***

Al jumps up, pushing Gellert away, and this time Gellert lets him, jumping up after him and following him out of the room.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Albus growls as he runs. "Why would he go to Hogwarts?"

Gellert pushes a door open and Al pounces through it. They reach the stairs and Albus stars going down two at a time.

"Snape could have been lying-" Gellert starts, but Albus shakes his head.

"He was telling the truth, I know how my students sound when they lie," Albus replies and jumps the last ten stairs all at once. Gellert takes a moment to watch his elegant body descend, then shakes his head and jumps after him.

They meet the boy in the entrance hall, and he runs straight towards Al. Gellert can see how he closes down as he approaches Albus and says, "We have to get to Hogwarts, Snape said-"

"We know, we heard," Albus interrupts calmly.

Potter's eyes narrow.

"You heard," He repeats dryly.

But Al, usually so very perceptive, completely misses the distrust, the bitterness piercing at him from the boy. Instead, he turns back to him, to Gellert, and says, "Get your people ready. We need to leave."

"Al, we're in Germany," Gellert points out. "How do you expect us to get to H-"

A screech from above stops him, and he grins to himself.

"Thestrals," The Potter boy says softy.

"Thestrals," Albus confirms, "Luna's send them to find us, I'm sure. That's good, it means she at least knows what's going on. Just to make sure, Gellert, have one of your people call The Burrow." Gellert nods and moves over to Credence, who's eyes are opened wide, and begins issuing quick orders, keeping an attentive ear to Al talking to Potter.

"Harry-" Albus starts, but Potter stops him.

"Please, don’t. if I stop to think about it, I won’t be able to fight with you, and we don’t have time for that."

"If you want to stay behind, I wouldn't blame you."

Gellert turns to look at the pair. Albus is searching Potter's face while the boy looks away, his expression one of pure fury, and he says, "Not everything is about you, _sir_."

 _Brave boy_ , Gellert thinks. _He'll be useful in the battle_.

***

He hasn't been in Hogwarts since he was sixteen around three hundred years earlier. It's changed. Not very much, but enough to make him feel like an intruder. Which he is, of course.

There's a forest surrounding Hogwarts grounds that hadn’t been there. A human village had grown beyond it, which makes Voldemort's lips thin. He snaps a finger and Lucius Malfoy appears.

"My Lord," His voice is low and subdued, the way it's been for years now. He's been almost like a dead man walking, not speaking unless spoken to, almost never giving his opinion without being prompted. All because his child has disappeared.

"There's a human village close by. Take a few people there. I want it gone before morning," _I want it gone before Dumbledore gets there_. _He wouldn't like it._ They have a few hours before that happens. He had hoped Snape would be able to hold out for longer then he had, but the idiot had just spilled everything to James Potter's son. Voldemort had watched it all unfold through Snape's eyes with disgust.

How unfortunate. He had so much potential, and had failed because of his love. Lucius is disappointing him as well, because of the same emotion.

 _I wonder, do you still think love makes you stronger?_ Voldemort asks Dumbledore in the safe confines of his own mind. _After all this time, do you truly believe that your love for him, for that blond, makes you stronger, or have you finally realized it does nothing but tether you in place?_

In response, a memory flashes through his mind: his eleven-year-old body being picked up, held safely in those strong arms, a warm and controlled voice telling him, "I don’t pity the dead, Tommy. I pity those who live without love."

 _Weak_ , Voldemort shakes his head in anger. _Weak, you've always been weak._

In his mind, a phantom-Dumbledore just smiles a mischievous smile and replies, _but if I'm weak, how come I beat you, put you to sleep for all those years?_

_You had help, Grindelwald and the Aurors helped you._

_But my dear Tom, I could have beaten you on my own,_ Dumbledore sounds amused.

Voldemort grits his teeth, but there's no denying the phantom-Dumbledore is right. If he ever truly let all his power loose, Dumbledore would be able to demolish whole cities. Not that he ever would, of course. Those days are unfortunately long gone.

Grindelwald had seen it, and Voldemort is self-aware enough to admit jealousy towards the handsome blond in that area. Dumbledore fully unleashed must have been a magnificent sight. Voldemort can imagine it, eyes clouded over with fury, claws unleashed, body hunched over, ready to strike, blood covering every inch of his pale skin, bringing out the blazing blue of his eyes.

Voldemort feels a shiver go down his spine and growls, forcing his mind away from the far-too tantalizing image. His hands clutch at the railing he's holding hard enough to break it. He watches as the stone pieces tumble down from the balcony to the ground bellow. When they hit the ground with a _thud_ , he sighs and turns to walk back inside the building.  

This is not how he had wants this to end. He doesn't want it to end in an all-out battle. That's how it had ended last time, and it hadn’t been very successful for him. He had ended up comatose for hundreds of years. No, he works best in the shadows, in the hidden places where Dumbledore is afraid to step, where he hesitates, not wanting to tarnish his own conscious. In those places, Voldemort has a distinct advantage.

But out from under the shadows, in the clear places where it's just fight, destroy, annihilate, there he has no chance to win. There, with all his doubts washed away, his old teacher is a force of nature, a force of destruction Voldemort doubts even the Gods would know how to contain. He's a tsunami that, if everything was right with the world, would be bringing all of creation to its knees.

But of course he doesn’t, because that would be _wrong,_ and he wants so much to be _good_. He contains himself, puts that hurricane under control, leaving himself with only a sliver of his power. It's enough to defeat all his enemies, but Voldemort wants to see all that force unleased, just for once, just one time…

He comes to a stop in front of a large Damascus steel door. A few of his Death Eaters are standing there, quietly discussing how best to get the door open. They stop when Voldemort comes up and bow to him. He ignores them completely, trailing a hand on the door. The children are in there, the children he has come to collect, along with their teachers.

A panic room. That's new as well, like the forest. When he was a student, if someone attacked Hogwarts, Dumbledore would have just sent the children out, to fight and defend their home. He had taught them to fight, to stand up to dangers that want to take them away from their teacher.

 _Weak_ , Voldemort thinks spitefully. _Do you see how weak you've made them?_

But for some reason, the phantom-Dumbledore just laughs and laughs.


	2. Holding On And Letting Go

_Grief… is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it_

_-Daniel Handler_

When she sees it, Hermione's first thought is, _how beautiful._

Because it really is, a stunningly beautiful dark castle which somehow manages to be both elegant and sturdy, delicate and strong. It's incredibly old looking, with three towers sticking out into the sky, situated in the middle of a valley with a sparkling lake in front of it, a moat leading up to one of the entrances and high walls surrounding the entire structure. For a moment she wonders what it would have been like, if she could have gone to Hogwarts and studied with Harry, how they would have explored the many hidden places there must be in such a large place, how they'd have swum in the lake and splashed each other, how fascinating it would have been to study under Dumbledore, McGonagall and Mad-Eye. Especially Mad-Eye. He must be one hell of an unorthodox teacher.

But she shakes her head, pushing the thoughts away as she hugs the thestral's neck. There's no time for wishful thinking. She'd never be able to study at Hogwarts- it's illegal. When this is all over, perhaps she'll fight that, with Tina Goldstein, who's been trying to get a bill through the High Court to make it legal for human-born vampires to study at Hogwarts when they're turned, but right now she has other and more immediate concerns.

Like the enticing scent of human blood that's suddenly taking over her senses. The scent isn’t coming from the castle. It's coming from beyond the forest. Hermione turns to Ginny, who's sitting behind her on the thestral, eyes wide.

"That's a lot of humans bleeding," Ginny whispers. She looks beyond Hermione to the rest of the Order members, who are flying on their own thestrals. Not a single one of them changes directions, all intent on getting to Hogwarts. Ginny's eyes harden and she commands, voice steadier then Hermione's would have been, "Let's go."

"Are you sure?" Hermione asks, but she's already leaning over to the thestral's neck. The animal makes a small screeching sound, as if he understands exactly what she wants, and understands, and then its huge wings go out to full length and they're gliding away from the others, towards the forest.

"Where are you going?" Ginny's father cries after them, but when Hermione turns to look at Ginny, she sees the red-head flip her father off but other than that ignore him.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ Hermione thinks bitterly, _how much they love her. They'll never understand her ability to look at humans as equals. They'll just think that it's a strange little left over from the time she was a human, an unfortunate reminder of what she used to be that didn’t get washed away when she was turned._

 _But they were just humans_ , the words echo through her mind.

Hermione growls, low and dangerous, forcing the memory of Draco's confused face out of her mind.

They fly over the green forest, away from everyone, away from the vampires in need, to save creatures who will die one day anyway.

Ginny's arms go around her waist, and Hermione doesn't need to be told that Ginny is holding onto her to support her, Hermione, and not for any benefit Ginny could be getting out of it.

But when they start hearing the screams, Ginny's hold becomes tighter and now it's the both of them that need comfort. Hermione clutches Ginny's hand with one of her own as they glide past the forest. Underneath them a small village is spread out, like a bouffe table for hungry vampires.

Small human figures run around, lay dead on the ground, try to stay in place as black-clad figures drag them around and open their veins, sending red blood splashing around. The sweet scent makes Hermione nearly gag.

 _They're so scared_ , she thinks, her stomach churning uncomfortably. _You can smell it in their blood._

"I'm jumping," Hermione tells Ginny, and swings a leg over the thestral. She takes a deep breath and prepares to jump. But before she can, one of the black-clad figures looks up and then there's something hurling towards them, a spear, large and fast.

"Hermione, move! -" Ginny screams, but the spear comes crashing into the thestral, slicing straight past Hermione's leg to get there. She screams out in pain, and the poor animal does the same, flapping its wings. And then they're tumbling to the ground, faster and faster, and Hermione pushes away from the thestral, pulling Ginny with her, and they tumble, together, back down to the forest.

She lets out a sharp gasp as she crashes into a tree.

***

Ginny blinks. Everything is upside down. She quickly closes her eyes and opens them again. But no, the world is still very much upside down. She can see a dark sky and trees, and red hair, but the sky is down where the trees should be and the trees are up where the sky should be. Another moment gets the world into focus. She's hanging from a tree branch, her pants caught in the wood, her body dangling. Ginny tries to push herself up, but then she hears a ripping sound and she falls down, landing on her stomach on top of the body of the thestral.

The animal moans it's distress as Ginny scrambles to get off its limp body. Her body is slick with thestral blood and she stumbles slightly, her nose overrun by the powerful scent, suddenly unable to smell anything else. The creature is lying on its side, the spear protruding from its stomach, splashing blood around every time it tries ineffectively to move. The thestral moans again, kicking its legs. Ginny hesitates, then moves closer to the animal. The thestral lets out a heart retching cry.

"Hi, hi," Ginny whispers. "It's all right, love. I'm going to take the spear out. You'll feel better, I promise."

"Don't bother."

Ginny jumps and looks up. For a moment her whole body relaxes, but then she tenses up again, realizing something is not right. It's not Dumbledore standing in front of her, looking down at her from his superior height with no pity or compassion. Dumbledore would have given her compassion.

"That animal is going to be dead in seconds, and all you'll achieve by taking the spear out is hunting him more," The man continues dispassionately. He looks so much like Dumbledore it's disturbing, especially because he's so clearly _not_ Dumbledore. It's like seeing a distorted version of Dumbledore, it's unsettling. Ginny watches with stunned silence as the man moves forward, grabs the thestral's neck and snaps it. The sound makes Ginny flinch, but the man seems completely unbothered. He looks up and sees her face.

"He's not suffering now," He says, and suddenly his voice is soft and gentle, the way Dumbledore's would sound if he said something like that to Ginny.

Ginny swallows softly and says, "Who are you?"

Instead of answering, the man says, "Your friend is still stuck in the tree."

Ginny immediately looks up, and there Hermione is, trapped in the tree, her body speared by branches. Ginny feels panic rushing over her and begins scrambling up the tree, clutching at the branches to give herself momentum, sending them tumbling to the ground, and reaches Hermione within seconds.

Hermione is laying on her back, three branches coming out of her stomach and chest. Her legs are twisted around her body, broken in a few places, and blood is oozing out of her in an impressive rate. She smiles (or tries to smile) at Ginny, who swears under her breath and tries to smile back reassuringly. She quickly breaks the large branches protruding out of Hermione.

"Hi, 'mione," Ginny whispers to her gently. "I'm going to pick you up, to get the branches out. It's going to hurt, all right? But I'll be right here."

Hermione bites her tongue and nods. Ginny closes her eyes briefly and puts her hands under Hermione's body.

"I'm going to count to three," She tells Hermione. "One, two-"

She grasps Hermione's body and pulls it up, leaving the branches behind with a disgusting squishy sound. Hermione lets out one sharp, loud scream, but then shutters and bites her lip to keep herself quiet.

"You…you said you'd count to three," She accuses, and then hugs onto Ginny as she jumps into the air and lands easily on the ground next to the man, who watches them emotionlessly.

"Thank you, Ginny," Hermione mumbles and pulls herself into a standing position, her body quickly reinvigorating itself. Still weak, she puts a hand on Ginny's shoulder for support and narrows her eyes at the man. "Who-are you?"

The man sighs deeply and starts walking away. The two women rush to follow him.

"Wait-" Ginny calls out, and the man sighs deeply and stops, turning back to pin her in place with his blue gaze.

"Yes?" He asks.

"You- who are you-" Ginny shakes her head as Hermione slumps against her. "You look like Dumbledore."

The man's eyes flash with something Ginny can't categorize, and says, "Albus Dumbledore is my brother."

"Your brother," Hermione mumbles, then nearly collapses onto the ground.

"Hermione!" Ginny gasps, grabbing Hermione and pulling her close to her. She looks at her worryingly. "You didn’t lose that much blood…"

Hermione mumbles something into her ear, and the man- Dumbledore's brother- sighs and comes over, grabbing Hermione's arm and pulling her towards him. Ginny begins to protest, but the man just puts his fingers against Hermione's eye and pushes it open to look inside it. He clicks his tongue and pulls Hermione on his shoulder and begins walking away again. Ginny rushes to join him, looking worryingly at Hermione, who's eyes are blood shot and rolled backwards into her socket.

"What's wrong with her?" Ginny whispers.

"The spear, it held in it a posion that weakens vampires," The vampire replies shortly.

Ginny swallows, "Can…can you fix her?"

"Yes, yes," The man rolls his eyes. "Come on, little girl."

"I'm not-" She starts, but the vampire interrupts her.

"You are, all of you are so little," The man shakes his head and suddenly comes to a full stop. Ginny watches as he leans down and moves crunchy leaves aside to reveal a wooden trap door that he opens with a key taken out of his pocket and pushes open.

"Come on, then," The vampire jumps into the trap door. Ginny follows, finding herself in a room with a large bed, a small kitchenette, two battered sofas and a huge number of shelves holding books and vials of liquid in different colors. On one of the walls there's a huge painting, a portrait of a young girl wearing a blue dress and standing in front of rolling green hills. The girl is quite beautiful, with long blond hair, a sweet little smile and the same blazing blue eyes as the two Dumbledores. She's tilting her head slightly, her hair tickling down her shoulder, pushed behind her small round ears.

The vampire places Hermione on the bed in a much gentler manner then Ginny would have expected and goes over to one of the shelves to shuffle around the vials, forehead creased in much the same way Dumbledore's creases when he's thinking. Ginny moves over to Hermione and sits down on the bed next to her, clutching her hand. Hermione doesn't seem to notice, her eyes closed and her body limp. Ginny pushes strands of black hair out of Hermione's clammy face and places a soft kiss against Hermione's forehead. Hermione's lips go up in a ghostly smile in response.

"There we go," The man mumbles and comes over, holding a small round vial with a pink liquid swarming around in it. He puts the vial on Hermione's lip and pushes her jaw down to open her mouth and pour the liquid down her throat. Hermione chokes softly and swallows instinctively, her body shivering slightly. The man puts the vial aside and pulls Hermione into a seated position. Ginny moves closer to her friend and watches anxiously as Hermione's eyes flicker open and she looks around with confusion.

"Are you all right?" Ginny asks, trying to keep her voice level and calm.

"I…" Hermione shakes her head softly and brings a hand up to her forehead. "What happened?"

"You were poisoned," Ginny replies. She looks at Dumbledore's brother, who's moving over to the fridge and taking out a bag of blood. "Mr. Dumbledore gave you the antidote."

"Oh," Hermione's eyes flicker to the man. "Thank you, sir."

"Hmm," The man throws the bag to Hermione. "Drink up, you'll need it."

Hermione looks down at the bag of blood and then looks up, her eyes searching the man. Her eyes narrow as she sees the portrait on the wall and she pushes herself up, opening the blood bag.

"She's beautiful," Hermione says quietly.

The man twitches and sits down on one of the sofas, eyes flickering up to the portrait. He doesn’t reply to Hermione's comment.

Ginny pats Hermione's shoulder as she drinks deeply from the bag and then says, "I didn't know Dumbledore had a brother."

The man snorts bitterly, "He doesn’t tend to talk about his family."

Hermione and Ginny exchange a look and Ginny shakes her head, willing Hermione to keep quiet. But Hermione takes another sip of blood and says, "Is she your sister or daughter?"

Ginny wants to smack Hermione in the head, but the man just turns to the portrait with a soft smile and says, "Our sister, Ariana."

"She really looks like you," Hermione puts the empty bag blood down on the night stand next to her. "What's your name?"

The man sighs and turns to look at the two of them before saying, "Aberforth Dumbledore. Now, kid, are you feeling better? Ready to leave?"

"You can come help us," Hermione blurts out. "The Death Eaters are attacking the town nearby-"

"Sorry, kid, but I have no intention of fighting for the Order anymore," Aberforth Dumbledore interrupts.

Ginny frowns and begins to stand up, feeling that they have clearly overstayed their welcome, but Hermione puts a hand on her arm and pushes her back down to the bed and says, "Why not?"

Aberforth Dumbledore blinks at Hermione and then his face grows soft and he says gently, "You don't have to go out there to fight, you know that? You two could just leave. This isn't your fight, it's his."

"It is our fight, of course it's our fight," Ginny snaps. "Didn't you hear what the Death Eaters are doing to those humans?"

"That's what's bothering you? Not the vampire children in danger at Hogwarts? Are you sure you're Dumbledore's people, because you don't sound much like you are."

Hermione blinks at the man and Ginny blurts out, "Why do you hate your brother so much?"

Aberforth Dumbledore frowns at her, as if she's speaking a foreign language he only vaguely understands.

"I don’t hate Albus," His eyes flicker back to Ariana's charming half-smile. "How could I hate him? He's the only family I have left."

"Your sister-"

"Ariana's been dead for over a thousand years."

Ginny swallows, because she knew Dumbledore was old, of course, but not _that_ old. She can tell the revelation has shocked Hermione as well, who's sitting up straighter in the bed.

"I'm sorry," Ginny says, because she knows what it's like to lose a sibling, to have them ripped out of your life forever and always.

Aberforth must be able to hear the sincerity in her voice, because there's a flicker of surprise in his face and then his whole body relaxes, and Ginny only realizes then how tense he had been up until that point, as though he only realizes at that exact moment that Ginny's a person in her own right, not just something that belong to his brother.

"Thank you," He says quietly, and for a moment they just stare at one another. Ginny is struck by how similar the brothers really look, how both their eyes are almost unnervingly blue and hold a whole ocean of sorrow just under the surface.

"Please come with us," She blurts out. "You can't…I know you're not a bad person, you can't just let those humans be killed for no reason."

"Little girl, you don’t know me, and it sounds to me that you barely know my brother, if you think he cares what happens to humans-"

"He does care," Ginny says feebly.

"Lady, he used to go out at night to the nearby cities and kill humans for sport," Aberforth sneers, his body tensing up again. "Him and Grindelwald, they used to have competitions to see who could kill more humans in the night. He'd kill hundreds of people, be covered in their blood all over. And when he was done, he'd return home to our squib sister and hug and cuddle her. Does that sound like someone who cares for humans, little one, or perhaps it sounds like a selfish man who only cares for people if they can give him something?"

 _You're lying_ , Ginny wants to scream, because if she can say the words out loud, maybe she can force herself to believe it. She wants to tear into her skull and break her brain, so she doesn't have to know about this, so she doesn’t need to know this, so she can rip the knowledge right out of her mind.

It's Hermione that speaks, before the silence can even properly stretch out before them. Her voice is wavering, but still somehow strong, somehow in control, "But Ginny wasn't talking about your brother. She was talking about you, and what you will do. His actions shouldn't effect your own."

Aberforth frowns at her and says, voice back to being gentle, "You don’t sound particularly torn up about this."

And with a bitterness that tears at Ginny's heart, Hermione replies, "I've gotten used to people disappointing me the last few days."

Aberforth scrutinizes her face for a moment and then nods, as if he found something there he like, and then says, "Very well, I'll help you."

***

As soon as Hermione pushes herself out of Aberforth's place, she hears the screaming. Aberforth's little hole-in-the-ground must have something around it that muffles sound, because she can hear horrific screams that bore deep into her body, and a thought comes up, unwelcome and unbidden: _this must be how Dumbledore's victims had sounded like._

But she forces that thought down, deep down into the dark place where she hid all thoughts of Draco, where she put those snickering comments from when she walked int the street with her step-father, those whispers about how _nice_ it was of Hugo to take her in, as if she was a stray dog, the place where she put that one time she had seen her father, and how she knew he had recognized her but he had sneered and turned away, and she had been to scared to go after him and hit him, and scream at him, and kill him with the little knife she started carrying in her pocket since those white boys had tried to feel her up when she walked home by herself, a place so deep inside of her that she doesn’t even need to consciously need to think about keeping it buried.

Suddenly she's running, not caring if Ginny or Aberforth are following. She's running and all she can see is red, running and growling like a rabid dog. She's running and wonders, with the small part of her mind still working the way it's supposed to, if pushing down all those thoughts has somehow unleased an inner beast in her, because right now all she can think is _blood, blood, I want to see blood_. She's not hungry, it’s not a feed she's after, but something much darker, something much deeper, something from deep inside, a yearning to see vampire blood spread out in front of her.

_I want them dead._

She lets out a screech that sounds, even to her, like a banshee, and she jumps into the air, crashing through a window and landing on top of a momentarily stunned Death Eater.

That moment is all she needs, and a clawed hand descends past black robes to rip out a still beating heart which she throws away in disgust, her tongue lapping over the blood smeared on her face. Dimly, she becomes aware of the hunched over and terrified humans she can barely smell under the stronger vampire scent, but she doesn’t care about that scent right now, and it washes away like a body tossed into an ocean, and she's moving again, pushing her body forward, onwards out of the house, into the street bellow, where she can smell so much prey her mouth waters and she screeches again before landing.

But there's only one person waiting for her, a man who's already ready for her. He can smell her blood-lust, and that's good, because what she needs much more then docile prey is the achingly familiar fight coming up.

As claws meet claws, as her shirt is ripped where fingers just missed flesh, as she's thrown in the air and crashes into a wall, large bricks falling on her and breaking her bones, a tiny little part of Hermione's mind wonders why this is so familiar, why she feels as though she knows this vampire who's grabbing her wrist, breaking it in two places before hurling her into the air, why there's a part of her that wants to curl against the vampire and hug him close.

She can't fight now, just lays limp on the ground, body broken and ripped open, with no time to heal before the next onslaught commences, before she's grabbed and chocked or thrown into the air and punched as she comes down, as she's pounded into walls and her flesh is torn off of her arms, off of her chest and legs, but not her belly, never her belly. But she's still alive, somehow, and it takes her some time to realize that the other vampire can't seem to bring himself to kill her. It's at that exact moment that everything turns in her mind and then settles down, right this time, and the whole world becomes clear.

"You smell like him," She grabs the blond vampire with her hand, which is rather impressive since three of her fingers are broken and facing the wrong way. "You must be his father."

The vampire drops her, as if she's lava-hot and he can't bare to touch her for fear of being burned himself. She falls to the ground and stifles a gasp as she lands on her broken rib. The vampire shivers in fury, looming over her, as though he wants to take hold of her again and pound her into the ground until she's buried so deep she can't come out for ever and always. But he won't, because of what could be happening inside of her, what could be growing as that very moment.

"What did you do to my son?" The vampire asks, and Hermione is suddenly taken back in time, to when she was a young girl and she found her half-brother crying alone in his room, and she had taken him to their mother, who had gone out to the neighborhood children playing outside and asked, _which one of you hurt him?_ And they had kept quiet, because sometimes even little children know when there's a dangerous predator among them, a predator ready to attack in order to protect her young.

But Hermione isn't scared, because this is one predator who's no threat to her. How can he hope to be a threat to her, when those she loves have already hurt her so much deeper than any stranger could?

"Do to Draco? I didn’t do anything to him, we did it together," She sneers back, or tries to, because it's hard to sneer over a broken rib.

The vampire's eyes close and he moves backwards, his body unable to be near her. She can almost see the need in him to move towards her and end her, end her before she can bring something to life he doesn't want to exist. She pushes herself backwards, putting down the wish to go and comfort him. He does smell like Draco, the same arrogance coming off the both of them, and she misses him, like she'd miss a limb that was ripped off her body. And that, more then anything, convinces her that even if she doesn’t have a way of knowing for sure, there's something growing inside of her. Because she doesn’t just miss her lover, she misses the person who's meant to be her partner.

"Listen-" She starts carefully, but then her eyes grow wide, and she sniffs the air. Draco's father growls low, smelling it as well.

He's coming closer every second.

"Draco…" Hermione whispers, and her eyes move towards his father, who's looking at her with wide eyes. Something shifts in his face, a decision made, and then he takes a step towards her.

"I won’t allow him to have a child with a mudblood," He says, his voice wavering, and that infuriates Hermione, because it sounds very much like he's forcing himself to do something that he doesn’t want to do, something that has to be done.

"You're going to kill me, even though I may be carrying your grandchild," It's not a question, more of a statement, and she closes her eyes. She can't even bring herself to care. It's not worth it, fighting for her life. Why should it be, when everyone she loves so much looks at her as inferior to them? She's tried, life is so exhausting, and it's hard to remember what the point of fighting even if. She's lived enough, long enough, she doesn’t want-

The smell of blood takes over her mind, a sweet smell that if so strong, it envelops her like a hug, and for a moment she just lets it calm her down, take her in and hold her close. She lets it take away all the exhaustion that comes from places deep down in her. She would have liked to stay like that, for much longer, but she never could, could she? She could never stay down and wait for the fight to be over, she could never let her desperation get the better of her for long. And so, she opens her eyes to face the world she exists in.

The first thing she sees is a heart. A small red thing still beating in a white hand, the hand just grazing her own chest, where it had wanted to land, to take out her own heart before someone else's chest came to stand in the way, to protect her, to hug her and hold her close.

She shifts in the arms holding her, and smiles, even though she doesn’t want to, because she only has a millisecond and she wants a smile to be the last thing he sees, a smile and not a shocked and horrified face, and not a face of desperation, not the face of a girl who's given up. Which she won’t, not ever again.

He smiles back at her, his beautiful blond hair tickling her forehead, and his mouth opens to say something, but of course he can't speak, but it's fine, she knows just what he wants to say to her, so she says, "Me too," and is rewarded with a look of satisfaction before eyes flicker closed and a body is pressed against her, heavy and motionless, and she inhales his smell, trying to commit it to memory, because this is the last time she'll ever smell him.

_Maybe his child will smell like him._

Then there's a horrifying, heartbreaking scream and Hermione closes her eyes, not scared anymore. He won’t do anything to hurt her, not with the body of his dead son, his dead son that he killed while trying to kill his grandchild, still on top of her. She forces herself to look away from Draco's serene face and looks up just in time to see Draco's father putting a hand into his own chest and tearing his heart out, throwing it to her before collapsing onto the ground.

"I loved you too," She whispers again, just to say it. And maybe he can hear it in the white station, a thought which sends a shiver of horror through her heart, and she hugs onto Draco strongly. "Don't come back, you don't need to. I'll take care of our baby, I promise. Move on, it's all right."

She holds her breath for a few minutes, but no ghost appears.

***

When she smells it, Ginny lets out a horrified scream and collapses into the ground. Her body goes into itself, curling into a ball, trying to keep herself as small as possible, so the flames can't reach her. The flames she can smell along with the scent of that woman. She can smell her, getting closer, the vampire with wild black hair and cruel eyes who had taken her blood, day after day, the vampire-

Strong fingers pull her up to a seated position, as though she's a little child, and the touch forces her mind to start working.

 _Not real_ , Ginny tells herself. _It's not real, I'm not there anymore._

But the smell is real, and it's coming towards her, the wild-eyed woman who took her older brother from her, who took Rom away forever. And she's there, standing in front of her, smiling cruelly.

"I'm going to kill you!" Ginny screams, jumping out of Aberforth Dumbledore's clutch. The woman just lets out a breathtakingly evil laughter and tilts her head towards Ginny.

From the corner of her eye, Ginny sees Aberforth getting up to fight two other Death Eaters, but her attention remains fixated on the woman.

"You killed my brother," Ginny whispers.

The woman frowns, thinking, then shakes her head, "Sorry, mudblood, can't remember. If we met, I must have scrubbed your filthy scent from my memory."

"You killed my brother when you burned the bloodfarm in Alabama," Ginny insists. "He was a pure-blood, you tore his heart out."

"Oh," The woman pouted, "Are you sad, itsy-bitsy little baby?" When Ginny just sneers in response, the woman grins and strikes.

 _Scared?_ Ginny thinks as she's caught by her throat and thrown into the air. _I'm not scared, I'm paralyzed. Does that make you feel good about yourself?_

She crashes into a tree, breaking the trunk with the force of her body. She scrambles to the side, feeling broken bones, as the tree comes crashing down, erecting a barrier between her and her enemy. She doesn’t stop to register the pain in her body, just runs forwards, crashing through the fallen tree to slash at the Death Eater's throat, but a hand snatches at her wrist and breaks it with sickening _crack_. Unable to stop herself, Ginny lets out a sharp scream that brings a sadistic grin to the Death Eater's face, and then her fingers are broken one by one, slowly.

Ginny screams again, and her knees buckle under her of their own accord. Still caught by her mangled hand, she's pulled up hard enough for her arm to come out of her socket. But it's not pain that keeps her locked in place, but those eyes, those eyes that have haunted her dreams for fifteen years, and she can't even protest when she's pulled onto the ground and away from Aberforth, who's still fighting his own fight and doesn’t seem to notice she's being taken away. Ginny opens her mouth to call to him, but nothing comes out, and her body is scratched and bruised on the forest ground.

She wants to move, to fight, as she's dragged into the village and dropped on the floor of a small church, but she can't. She doesn’t feel she has the right to move, she's not a person, she's just a blood bag, a creature that exists just to be drained, over and over again, until she'll be mercifully put down, like all those others who were taken out, their bodies carried past her bed.

 _Stop_ , a voice tried to yell at her. _You're not there anymore, you can move, you_ have _to move._

 _I want to_ , she tries to tell the voice, _but can't you see that I can't?_

 _You can,_ the voice replies, and now it sounds like Harry. _I'll help you, but you have to start. I can't do it for you._

"You know, I think I _do_ remember killing your brother," Ginny looks up to see the woman looking down at her, a large spear in her hands, twirling it in her fingers. "But I thought for sure I killed _you_. That's what the fire was for- to kill all you humans, since you weren't needed anymore."

 _Move,_ Harry's voice whispers gently, like a caress within her mind. _Move, Gin._

She can't, not with the fire burning her legs, not with the smoke in her eyes, not with the spear entering her belly, and now her eyes a fluttering closed, and she doesn’t know what's real and what is in her mind, and usually when that happens she just tip-toes to her parents room, or, as she's been doing more and more, to Harry's room, to watch him sleep and then she knows there's no fire and no pain and no blood leaking out of her body.

She can’t do that now, there is no Harry now, no home, no safety, just an overwhelming assault on her senses, an exhaustion that takes over everything, even her pain and fear, an exhaustion she wants to fall into, a darkness where she doesn’t need to contemplate how she failed, how she once more allowed fear to take over her and control her.

"What an ugly place," The cruel voice goes on speaking. "It will be a public service to burn it. Do you see? No, you don’t, your eyes are closed tight, aren't they, little filthy mudblood? All the humans have come here to hide like mice. Perhaps they think they hope their gods will protect them. I think I'm going to lave you here, mudblood. But first-"

She hears a flicker and then the _whoosh_ of a fire starting, and then Harry's voice screaming in her mind, _up! Get up! She started a fire, she wants to burn-_

 _I don't mind burning,_ Ginny interrupts. _I'm too tired to care._

_But she's going to burn the humans to death, and she's going to walk out of here, free again._

_You'll be sad if I die,_ Ginny thinks, and that's the clencher. She doesn’t want Harry to be sad, not ever again. His green eyes are so beautiful when they're sparkling with joy. It breaks her heart to see them dull with pain, or dark with sadness. It hurts her, because Harry is one of those people who should be happy, who deserve to be happy, who suit happiness like a perfect glove fits a hand. If she lets herself be burned without a fight, how will she be there to make sure no one makes him sad?

She yells, and opens her eyes. The black-haired woman grins through the newly created flames. She doesn’t even more, not at all worried that Ginny could attack her. So she only has a moment for her face to switch from satisfaction to shock to pain when Ginny pulls the spear out of her own flesh and throws it with precision, smiling as it hits the vampire in the throat and throws her backwards, pinning her to the floor as the flames lick their way around the church.

Pain throbbing through her, Ginny crawls her way to the vampire thrusting on the ground, trying to get up.

"Well?" She whispers, "How does it feel, to lay there, helpless, at the mercy of someone who doesn't consider your life worth keeping?"

The woman's eyes are full of hatred, but also fear, and that fear brings a small smile to Ginny's mouth, and then she collapses onto the ground, out of reach of those claws slashing the air, the poison working its way inside of her. She feels the heat getting closer, smells the flames, hears the scream of the humans hiding above her. But she can't move- the poison has taken that option away from her, her body can barely keep her conscious, forget movement.

There's panic, and fear- which she knows from experience are two entirely different things- but those feelings are distant, and what she can feel stronger than anything else is satisfaction, the knowledge igniting pleasure in her mind: she is no longer purely a victim, not anymore. She's destroyed a demon that's haunted her dreams, and even though the fire still terrifies her, and probably will forever more, she at least can comfort herself in the knowledge that the one who set that first fire is terrified of it as well.

Ginny closes her eyes, and immediately an image rushes to her mind. Harry, laying down next to her under the Ford Angila, humming to himself as one of his hands drew lines and circles on her arms, his eyes searching her face. She smiles to herself and curls into a ball, ready for the pain.

But she doesn’t burn. Soft arms go around her and pick her up, and she's carried away from the flames. her eyes open, and now she's suddenly panicking and she grasps at Aberforth's shirt as the church explodes behind them.

"The humans!" She gasps.

"I got them out," Aberforth says gruffly as he shifts Ginny in his arms to point to the human figures running away from the burning church. He looks down at Ginny and shakes his head. "I can't believe you also managed to get yourself poisoned. I took my eyes off you for one minute-"

Ginny places a hand on Aberforth's mouth, stifling his voice so she can hear it better, the earth-shattering screams coming from the burning church, the same screams Ginny herself let out when she was the one burned, all those years ago. She doesn’t do anything to stifle the pleased laughter that comes out, a ying to the yang of the scream, and she doesn’t stop until Aberforth gives her a shake that causes her teeth to chatter and says, "Enough of that!"

Ginny frowns at him, "But-"

"Bellatrix Lestrange deserves everything you gave her, trust me. But what are you, an extension of her, to be so pleased by the pain of a fellow living creature?" Aberforth snaps.

 _Now you sound like your brother,_ Ginny thinks, but decides not to say that out loud. Instead she bites her tongue and allows herself to be carried away from the church.

"Sorry," She mumbles.

Aberforth snorts, "Don’t get me wrong, I understand the impulse."

Ginny sneaks a look to see his face has grown darker. Ginny swallows and takes the antidote handed to her gratefully. She remains quiet as she drinks the antidote and is carried around the village. But when she sees Hermione laying on the ground, hugging Malfoy's dead body, she lets out a small shriek and jumps out of Aberforth's arms to wobble over to Hermione's side.

"Hermione?"

Hermione blinks up at her, arms going around the body. She smiles faintly at Ginny and whispers, "Ginny, I was really stupid."

"Hermione, what happened?" Ginny asks, eyes blinking.

Hemione lets out a laughter that sounds far to close to hysterical to Ginny's ears, and she suddenly hears her own delightful laughter in a different light, and realizes she must have sounded slightly hysterical as well. She suddenly understands perfectly why Aberforth had stopped her, and is immensely grateful he had done so.  

"Can’t you see? Draco is dead, and his father as well," Hermione clutches at Draco's body, and closes her eyes, a tear trickling out. "I want to go home, Ginny."

"I know," Ginny gently detaches Hermione from the body. Hermione doesn’t object and allows herself to be pulled away towards Ginny's hug. "I also want to go home. But we can't yet. There are people who need us, still."

Hermione frowns and looks up at Ginny. She sighs deeply and hugs Ginny closer, her voice slightly muffled as she says, "They need us, and we need them."

Yes, Ginny thinks as Aberforth gently helps them both up and Hermione makes a strangled sound as though she doesn't want to leave the body behind. _I need them, even if I wish I didn’t._


	3. Shattered Castle

_I love you. You’re mine. I’ll kill any bastard who tries to take you from me_

_-Samantha Young_

It's quite a sight, that battle that's started without them (how _rude_ , Harry thinks, because sarcasm is quite effective in blocking any real emotion) and as Harry glides up on his thestral, he takes a few moments to just take it all in, because he can tell he won't have the time to do that once he joins the battle.

The grounds around Hogwarts, once so pristine and neat, with their green grass and neat rows of flowers and slim trees, are now full of craters he can only assume were created by bodies being slammed on the ground. A not insignificant portion of it has been painted red. The trees are laid down and stomped on, and flower petals are flying in the wind.

Of course, the ground itself holds very little interest when compared to the creatures stomping about on top of it. Harry recognizes the members of the Order, and sees that some of them are fighting Death Eaters. But those are the minority- there just aren’t that many Death Eaters. Most of the Order is busy fighting the creatures that the Death Eaters brought with them. Werewolves in human form, Dementors and giants so tall they cast a shadow over a not insignificant part of the battle field, who are wielding clubs that that muse weigh the same as two or three cars, bellowing in rage and bringing the clubs down on the ground with enough force to crack the Earth and send everyone around them flying into the air.

There are also what appear to be empty suits of armor stumbling about and trying to hit the attackers with their rusty swords. It's not particularly effective, but it does provide a nice distraction once in a while as annoyed Death Eaters and werewolves turn to destroy a suit, providing the Order members with an exposed neck to attack. There are also enormous spiders that appear to be divided in their loyalties between the Order and Death Eaters, and then there's Fluffy, the three headed enormous dog who is _not_ divided in his loyalties, catching attackers in his mouth and throwing them in the air before going to get a pat on one of his heads from Hagrid.

All in all, it's rather overwhelming.

"Thanks for the ride," Harry says to the thestral, who snorts and shakes his long neck in response. Harry pats it's head, wondering how he could have ever found the thestrals ugly or creepy, and jumps.

The lands in the middle of the action and is immediately attacked by a werewolf, who growls and often his mouth, revealing a long line of canine teeth.

The werewolf grabs at Harry's arm and opens his mouth wider to bite him, and tries to close his teeth on Harry's skin. He gives it a valiant effort, before he stops in his tracks, opens his eyes wide, and falls down to the ground, revealing a James Potter holding a smocking-

"Is that a _gun_?" Harry shrieks. "Where did you get-"

His father grabs his hand and pulls him to the side, milliseconds before a club comes crashing down, sending Harry tumbling to the ground from the impact. He's quickly pulled up by his father, who stands in front of him protectively.

"Are you all right?" James asks, pulling out a second gun and handing it to Harry. "Let's take that giant out, ok?"

"Of course I'm all right," Harry mumbles back, cocking the gun and beginning to fire at the giant's legs.

"There are too many scents here, you can't relay on your sense of smell to get you out of a jam here. Use your hearing, kiddo," The giant roars in frustration as his legs gets short over and over again. It appears to annoy more then hurt him, though.

"I know!" Harry snaps. He wants to add, _I'm not a kid!_ But he worries that might sound rather childish.

"Do you? Then how come you didn't notice a fucking _giant_ coming your way?"  Said giant lets out a roar and brings his club up. Harry and his father jump in opposite directions and meet in front of the giant's…backside. Which they promptly begin to shot.

"I was a little distracted, seeing you holding a human weapon," Harry motions for more emo, which is immediately given. "Where did you even get this?"

"From lovely Ginny," James grins as the giant stumbles to his knees, which cause a minor earth quake. Harry scowls at his father. He doesn’t like how pleased his father is about his relationship with Ginny. Not that Harry would have preferred James to have hated Ginny, but the relationship belonged to him and Ginny, and no one else. He didn’t like people trying to worm their way inside, which everyone seemed to be trying to do. Perhaps that was the result of living with all three of their parents, along with Ginny's five brothers. He'd already gotten the 'you hurt her and I will kill you' speech from each of Ginny's brothers, from her parents and her sister in law Fleur. Fleur's was without a doubt the most terrifying conversation. It made him wonder if maybe they should get a place of their own. "And Hermione. I have to say, I kinda like it. Help me take off the head?"

"You bet," Harry places the gun in his back pocket and jumps on top of the giant's back.

Large hands come up to swat him away, but while giants have a rather impressive strength, they are rather slow and so the giant fails to catch Harry as he runs up it's spine. He lands on the giant's neck, and the creature lets out a bellowing of anger, shaking his head furiously from side to side in an attempt to try and get Harry off.

Clutching fist full of coarse giant hair, Harry is swung back and forth in the air, somehow managing to hold on. His legs flail in the air for a moment, before landing, entirely by accident, inside one of the giant's nostrils. 

"Oh, oh, oh Gods," Harry groans as his feet and legs are covered in giant snot. The giant lets out a confused growl and makes to grab Harry, but his hand is thwarted by James Potter, who, _shockingly_ , is laughing.

"Not funny!" Harry calls loudly, trying to wiggle around. "I'm stuck, Dad!"

"You are," James hiccups with laughter as he grabs Harry's shoulders. "But it's still funny, buddy. Hold on, will you?"

"You're such a heartless father," Harry says, trying to sound stern, but finding it hard not to smile in return. He holds on to his father's arms, and the feel of those strong arms holding him brings up a déjà vu feeling that makes his whole body slightly relax, because his father is holding him, and when he was little, that meant he was safe and could relax and won't be dropped, no sir. He doesn’t feel this way anymore, he knows far too much about the world now to expect his father to be able to fix everything. But the déjà vu still makes him feel slightly better.

With a hard yank and a sound that can only really be described as something-being-pulled-out-of-a-giant's-nose, Harry is freed and soars through the air for a moment before landing on his father's belly on the ground.

"This is gross," James grumbles as the confused giant roars and tries to rush to him, only to fall down again, his knees short nearly to the bone. Harry quickly takes his gun out and begins shooting at the giant's forehead, dimly aware of his father taking out a few attackers who had tried to take advantage of his distraction to attack Harry.

James settles behind Harry so Harry can lean his back on his father's legs as they shoot on.

"My legs are stuck together," Harry complains, looking down at his disgusting legs. "By _snot_. This is not what I signed up for."

James's response is to let out a snort that made Harry look up and threaten, "If you don’t stop laughing, I'm going to tell Moony you're being derelict in your duty as a father. What do you think he'd do to you then, huh?"

Something shifts in James's face, and he put a hand on Harry's head in a protective way.

"What? What happened?" Harry demands.

"Nothing, everything is fine," Kames says automatically, then grimaces as if chastising himself for forgetting Harry wasn't a child anymore. "We don’t know-"

He's interrupted by a roar coming from the giant that Harry really does think may have shattered an ear drum or two.

"We got a call from him, that's how we knew about Hogwarts. We got cut off. Harry, move!"

"I was!" Harry protests, running away as the giant comes down, the force of his fall causing shakes in the castle walls and squashing some people who weren't fast enough to get from under him. He waits for the ground to jump up and down and then before rushing over to his father, who's blinking owlishly, covered in dirt.

"You think the werewolves discovered he was a spy," Harry says, docking to get out of the way of a spear.

" _Careful_ \- I don’t know, Harry. I fucking hope not."

"Doesn't matter," Harry says, and he's impressed by how confident he sounds because it's definitely not how he feels. "Remus can get out of every mess in the world. He'll come back."

His father rewards him with a ruffle of his black hair and a grin before sending him back into fight.

***

"I thought you were coming with us to Hogwarts," Ginny accuses as Aberforth leads them back to his home.

"I am," Aberforth grumbles. "But if you're going to be any use, you need blood. And there's a way into Hogwarts from here."

Ginny frowns, slightly suspicious, but jumps down to the hole-in-the-ground and accepts the offered blood bag. As she drinks. Ginny steals quick looks at Hermione. Her friend is standing rather close, as if she needs the support from Ginny, her whole body hunched over, face pale. Ginny would say she's in shock if not for her eyes, which are just as sharp and searching as always.

"So, where is the way into Hogwarts?" Ginny asks. Instead of responding with words, Aberforth goes over to Ariana's portrait and moves it aside gently (gently, the way Ginny imagines he would have touched his sister during her lifetime) to reveal a dark tunnel.

"Oh," Ginny grins. "That's neat."

"My brother's idea," A fire flickers in Aberforth's eyes, and he stomps into the tunnel before Ginny can figure out what it means. With a shrug she throws the empty blood bag behind her and steps into the tunnel after the man, tugging Hermione along because she's not entirely sure her friend is aware of what is going on around her.

They walk for a few moments with only the soft shuffle of their feet breaking what other wise be a deathly silence, before Ginny moves closer to Aberforth's back (the tunnel isn't broad enough to allow two people to walk next to each other) and says, "How old was your sister, when she figured out that she was different?"

Aberforth, to his credit, doesn’t stop moving, just makes a snorting sound and says, "You're sure you're not a Lovegood? You have their sense of tack."

"Right, sorry," Ginny mumbles. "It's just…well, I've never actually met any other squib, I'm just curious, I suppose."

A soft hand caresses her hair from behind, and Hermione catches her hand and gives it a squeeze.

That does get Aberforth to stop walking for a millisecond before sighing and walking on, saying, "Well, that would make sense, squibs are incredibly rare."

"I know," Bitterness leaks out of Ginny with every syllable.

Aberforth glances at her for a moment before saying, "They used to kill squibs the moment they were born."

"Oh, so I should be grateful my parents didn't drown me like the Ministry suggested?"

"Did you hear me say that?" Aberforth snaps, then shakes his head, looking ahead again. "When Ariana was born there was no suggestion, our parents were given a firm directive: kill Ariana or be banished from vampire society forever. So, I suspect she knew from the moment she was old enough to recognize resentment."

"You resented her. I can understand that."

"No," Aberforth snaps, which makes Ginny jump. "I wasn't the one who was resentful of her."

Ginny narrows her eyes, "I didn't mean to insult you."

"You didn’t," Aberforth replies shortly.

They walk on in quiet for some more time before Ginny says, "It was your brother who resented Ariana, right?"

"Hmm," Aberforth hums. "From the moment she was born to the moment she died and beyond."

He suddenly stops and says, "We're here."

Ginny looks up to see Aberforth opening a steel door on the ceiling. As soon as the door opens a rough, scarred arm comes down, grabs Aberforth by his shirt and pulled him up, making him disappear.

Ginny and Hermione rush forward as they hear Aberforth crying out, "Gods, Mad-Eye, it's me!"

"Aberforth?" McGonagall's voice asks, confused. "Alastor, put him down."

"For gods' shake, Mad-Eye, couldn't you sniff the air before you attacked? You'd have realized it was me! I liked that shirt!"

"Const-"

"Don’t you fucking dare, I will fucking kill you if you say tha-"

"No cursing in front of the children," McGonagall's voice sounds closer and she suddenly jumps down in front of Ginny and Hermione. "Miss Granger, Miss Weasley. It's good to see you."

"McGonagall," Ginny says in response and accepts her help to jump up out of the tunnel. She finds herself in a rather large closed room whose ceilings, walls and floor is made entirely of Damascus steel. Mad-Eye is standing above an annoyed looking Aberforth Dumbledore, and around twenty vampire children, in their teens, are hunched over in one corner, clearly frightened.

"Um…" Hermione looks around. "What-"

"Welcome to the Hogwarts panic-room, which apparently has a secret tunnel in it," McGonagall says dryly. She looks at Aberforth and asks, "Where does the tunnel go?"

"My place in the forest," Aberforth replies, standing up and grimacing at his ripped shirt. "Albus didn't tell you?"

McGonagall snorts, "Of course not. That would be showing all his cards."

"He was right to do so," Mad-Eye growls.

"Yes, we know, my brother doesn't trust anyone completely," Aberforth growls. "I did tell him to tell you and Minerva about the tunnel. I thought if he'd trust anyone he'd trust you…how long have you been hiding in here?"

 _But he trusts you_ , Ginny thinks. _He told you about it, made it with you._

"We haven’t been hiding like scared mice in a hole, Aberforth," McGonagall says sharply. "We've been keeping the children safe."

Aberforth's face softens as he looks over at the scared children and he says, "You can take them to the forest, Minerva."

"I will, I'll get them to safety, then I'll come back," McGonagall nods at the children, who scramble up and move over to her. Aberforth turns to Mad-Eye as soon as the last child disappears.

"Ready?" He asks with a slight smile.

"Born ready," Mad-Eye growls.

"No you weren't, I knew you as a baby," Aberforth turns to Ginny and Hermione. "You two ready? They'll probably have brought giants."

"Oh, in _that_ case," Ginny rolls her shoulders, and Aberforth gives her a grin and opens the door.

Aberforth was right, there are giants. And centaurs, and goblins and lethifolds and rubble and a destroyed castle that's really looking like an antique from ancient Greece, and there's blood and fighting and death, and for a few hours Ginny moves in a bit of a haze, unaware of most things around her. She thinks she sees her father, and her brother Charlie being attacked by a werewolf, but she doesn’t have the time to stop and see clearly, since she's attacked every few seconds by often more than one enemy. By the time the sun comes out, forcing the vampires to retreat into the Great Hall of Hogwarts, which is conveniently underground, Ginny's body is covered entirely in blood, most of it not her own, her clothes are entirely torn and she's growling in anger.

_This is the worst day, ever._

She ducks an arrow sent by her from the bow of a centaur and lands on the floor, right next to a very familiar set of stunning green eyes. She grins at him as he reaches over, but instead of getting a kiss or a caress, she gets a hand around her waist pushing her to the side, which makes sense very quickly, as a few more arrows land next to them.

"Oh, hi," Ginny says, very eloquently.

Harry grins and jumps up, pulling Ginny to her feet as well, and they rejoin the fight, side by side.

"When did you get here?" Harry asks her at some point, as they stand back to back. "Your father was worried about you."

"Was he," Ginny frowns as she punches a werewolf. "I was busy saving humans from vampires."

"Don't get angry, Gin," Harry grabs her wrist as they are pushed to the side by a Death Eater who's narrowing his eyes as if slightly annoyed that they were having a conversation while he's trying to intimidate them. "I think you were right to go to the village. But he does seem slightly angry with you."

"Let him, " Ginny snaps. "I'm not a child, I don’t need my father's permission to act-" She stops, realizing how childish she sounds, but Harry is grinning as he attacks the Death Eater. "What's so funny?" She asks.

"Nothing, it's just good to know I'm not the only one here who's pissed with their parents. Mine laughed when I got stuck in snot."

"Yes, well, forgive me if I would prefer if we bonded over less childish things," Ginny replies, capturing the Death Eater's arms behind his back and falling to the floor. The man squirmed above her as Harry pinned him down with his own weight. "Also, snot?"

"Anything to get closer to you, darlin'," Harry replies with a sly grin, suddenly sounding like Hermione when she went full Southern belle. "And not just any snot, giant snot."

"Oh, my love," Ginny sighs dramatically. "How ever did you survive?"

"Will you two stop love-birding at each other and fight me?" The Death Eater demands, still trapped.

Harry frowns at him, "But we did fight you, and won. It was really easy. Took around a second. Didn't you notice? Weren't you paying attention?"  He turns to Ginny and rolls his eyes. "Death Eaters, huh?"

"Can't get them to focus," Ginny agrees as Harry eviscerates their prisoner's chest. It must be a vampire thing, how much she wants to ravish him with their prey's blood splashing his face.

Yes, a vampire thing. Much less disturbing then the possibility that it's a Ginny thing.

***

The sight of Hogwarts usually makes him smile, usually gives him a deep sense of satisfaction and pride. Usually, whenever Albus returns to Hogwarts, his first thought when seeing the beautiful castle is, _why did I leave, again?_

Now, when he sees the battle torn castle and smells the scents of a war zone infecting his school, the first thought that that comes to mind, before he can restrain his thoughts is, _leave, leave. Let's go somewhere far from here._

It sounds disturbingly like something Gellert would say. _Forget what you think is your responsibility, come with me somewhere where it will just be you and me, somewhere I can keep you safe._

Albus grits his teeth, stealing a look at Gellert on a thestral besides him. Not as close as he usually is when they fly together, not as close as Albus knows he wants to be. He's keeping a respectful distance. He does that sometimes, stays away when Albus needs him to. It's an incredibly rare occurrence, and Albus has no illusions as to how long it will last: exactly until they find Tom. Then Gellert will suddenly decide that it's time to stick to him like a magnet.

Or a particularly protective toddler.

Which really should not make Albus calm down, if anything the opposite, but it does, and he isn't above accepting the little comforts he can get at the moment. Later, he'll despite himself for accepting any comfort provided by a man who just killed his own underling for no apparent reason, but not now. And isn't _that_ the perfect summation of his entire fucked up pathetic life?

"Where are you going?" Gellert yells out as Albus steers the thestral towards the clock tower. "We're not joining the fight?"

"Tom won't be there," Albus replies curtly before jumping off the thestral. He lands on the ground a moment before Gellert, and says, "He won’t be fighting the Order. He'll be waiting."

"For you," Gellert moves forward, closer to Albus.

That was quicker then expected.

Ignoring Gellert's proximity, Albus says, "He's in the Room of Requirement."

"Where?" Gellert frowns at him. Of course, he forgot that he never told Gellert about that place. And why should he have? It was a secret place, created just for a lost little boy who needed a safe place to call his own.

"Come on," He says, and starts running. He can hear the sounds of the battle going on around and bellow them, but he tones the sounds out. _Can't help there right now, need to get to Tom, need to end this._

The Room of Requirement's door is still standing in the middle of the hallway, dark wood against the pale stones of the hall. It's scratched from claws, but those scratches have been there for hundreds of years now, the remnants of an angry boy wanting to destroy everything in his path. The memory leaves Albus momentarily shaken. How could he not have seen, much sooner, the anger flaring from Tom's eyes whenever he looked at the world? How could he not realize how deep the darkness lay? But then again, how could he blame himself for wanting to save a child from the horrors of the world?

 _I wish I knew where I went wrong, exactly what I did wrong_. That was the worst part, not knowing if there was ever hope at all, or if Tom was doomed from the moment Albus found him, huddled in a puddle of his own blood at that monastery, body still healing from the last attack from the priests.

He takes a deep breath, fingers trialing the scratches, feeling the intense gaze on his neck, then shakes his head. No use prolonging the inevitable. He opens the door.

It's quiet, but Albus can smell him, and he knows that Tom can smell him in return. He walks past the book shelves, past several punching bags and painting easel, past discarded chairs and various little items. Or at least, he walks past the destroyed remnants of all those things, given that since they are a few hundred years old most of the things in the room are decayed and almost gone. The symbolism isn't entirely lost on him.

Tom is seated on the floor at the end of the room, legs brought up, arms resting on his knees, hands twirling a ring in his fingers. His grandfather's ring. For a moment Albus can almost delude himself that he's back in time, and this is Tom at sixteen, before the last horrific act that finally broke Albus's pink-tinted glasses. He used to sit in this exact way back then, as well, hands twirling a quill in his fingers instead of a ring, eyes squinted, thinking hard. He thought so much, back then. Spent all his time thinking. Even when he was doing something, his mind would be running in a hundred different directions at once.

"So, you brought backup," Tom say, and he must not know just how well Albus understands him, or he would realize the level of bitterness he's showing in those four little words.

"Tom-" Albus starts, but Tom looks up with a quirked eyebrow and he quiets down.

"You're not going to try and talk me out of this, are you?" He asks, almost gently.

"No," Albus shakes his head. "It will just make you angrier, won't it?" He moves forward, just one step, but both Tom and Gellert react almost violently. Tom by jumping up, his body suddenly in a battle stance, and Gellert by grabbing his wrist and pulling him backwards, a low growl issuing from deep within him.

Tom seems to relax a little when he realizes that Albus isn't attacking just yet, and grins cruelly at Gellert, "A bit overprotective, aren't we?"

"Well," Gellert grits out, his grasp on Albus unrelenting. "Since you _are_ planning on trying to kill him-"

"Oh, I know I can't kill him," Tom shrugs. "But you're right, I am going to try."

Without thinking very hard about what he's doing, Albus moves forward and ingulf Tom in a hug. He can feel Gellert stiffen behind him, but Tom melts in his arms, his hands going up to clutch Albus's shirt, like the little boy he still is, somewhere.

"You're really an idiot, you know that?" Tom snorts, sounding so little and lost. "You don’t get it at all, do you?"

Albus frowns, and looks back to Gellert, who mouths to him, _that's not what he wants from you_. Albus jerks away from Tom at that, and Tom's eyes grow narrow.

"All right," He says, rolling his head a full circle before grinning ferally, and now he doesn't look like a lost little boy anymore. "Thank you, I'm ready now."

And he attacks.


	4. The Ground Shakes When You Walk

_Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds_

_-Robert Oppenheimer_

_Boom._

The loud sound reverberates through the hall, so loud that it can be heard above the sounds of battle, and heard clearly and strongly. And as if they're one being, every single person and creature currently fighting stops what they're doing and turns their heads up, to where the sound is coming from. Each and every one of them suddenly trapped in the knowledge that something is happening, something large that should not be disturbed. Something dangerous.

They have around half a second to process the strange occurrence before the ceiling comes crushing down.

Harry doesn’t have time to react, or to even think about what is happening. One moment he's listening closely, the next his lower body is crushed by a falling stone, and his vision blacks over as all sources of light are taken away. All he can see is the dark, and all he can feel are stones crushing his body, dirt and pebbles grinding into his skin. He tries to move, but finds he's trapped, his whole body is pinned down. With a grit of his teeth, he slashes at the stones, feeling them yield to the sharp objects penetrating them. It breaks his claws as well, which hurts so badly it brings tears to his eyes, but he keeps going, until the stones holding his arms are broken off and he can start pulling himself up.

As his claws grow back, Harry climbs, using them to break the stones around him and sinking them into hard surfaces to get momentum, until his hand goes up and he can suddenly feel the air on his skin, and can see light, far too much light, the light of the sun, can feel his energy already starting to be sucked away, but he keeps going, up and up, until his whole body is out, and he lays there on the ground, his strength quickly drained by the sun.

"Harry!" He hears someone calling his name and blinks up, seeing a familiar figure rushing towards him, and suddenly there's a huge blanket covering his body, and he can't see anything, but at least the sun isn’t draining him anymore.

"Remus?" He asks the unseen area around him, his heart pounding, unsure if he imagined the beloved voice. He suddenly wishes he was a half-werewolf as well, so the sun wouldn't affect him quite so drastically. He feels like his whole body is lead, he can't seem to be able to move. "What's going on? Was…Was there an earthquake?"

There's a moment of silence and then Remus says, voice hesitant, "Not…exactly." His voice causes Harry relax immediately, and then he frowns, thinking of what Remus has just said. What does 'not exactly' mean, exactly?

Before Harry can ask, a tornado hits.

Or at least, that's what it feels like from Harry's perspective. One moment there's no wind, and the next a gust of it pushes him deeper into the earth. A gust of wind is really the only way he can describe it, but it feels more like a giant hand pulling him down, it's so strong. The wind is strong enough to be categorized as a tornado in Harry's mind. For half a moment he lays there, wind strong enough to be painful keeping him in place, and if he were a human he'd probably be swept up into the air by now, but then, just as quickly as it started, it stops. Or rather, moves past him, and Harry can sit up, or at least he could if he wasn't so weak, and if it wasn't for the second _boom_ that hits the broken ground, pulling him down into the earth again.

_What the fuck is going on?_

He's trapped in the ground again, under yet more rocks and dirt, but this time he doesn’t have the energy to pull himself out of it. So he just lays there, contemplating when his life got so fucked up and what he could have possibly done to deserve it (he can still feel some of the giant snot on his legs). _Let Ron die_ , a nasty little voice whispers. _No_ , Harry responds back, _and fuck you with several inanimate objects_. It's a trick he leaned from Ginny: sometimes you just have to be mean to your own mind.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to engage in a full-on war with himself, as a few moments after getting stuck again he sees a sliver of sun as Remus's arms grab him and pull him out, bringing him back to the surface and covering him with the blanket again. A moment later, Remus's face is pushed into the blanket and Harry grins, despite everything. It's so good to see Moony again.

"Harry," He sighs, and he looks fine, not at all like he was recently eviscerated by werewolves., like Harry was afraid. Harry decides to take the small victory. Its mot like he has a lot of those at the moment. "I need to get you out of the sun. You're the last member of the Orders till out here, the rest are at the human village-"

"Remus, what is going on? What are those," Harry waves his hands, or at least tries to. All he really manages to move are his wrists. "Earthquakes?"

"Dumbledore is fighting Riddle," Remus says shortly, and pulls himself out from under the blanket. "I'll carry you, all right?"

"All right," Harry says numbly, knowing he can't move on his own.

"We need to get to a safe distance from the fight," Remus says. And then the next hurricane hits, and they're both plastered to the ground.

 _It's going to be bumpy ride,_ Harry thinks.

***

The Order members are huddled into one of the houses in the village, whose windows and doors have been boarded up to keep the sun out. Aberforth has brought his entire stash of human blood to the house, and McGonagall has handed each Order member enough blood to reinvigorate themselves after the exposure to the sun. She had brought the children to the house the night before, and they had been the ones to board it up, keeping themselves safe and away from the fighting. A small part of Hermione envies them that ability, but a larger part of her is both desperately glad she got to fight and help, and keenly aware of the angry pouts and growls of the children, showing that they did not appreciate being left out of the fight one bit.

"I called the Ministry as well," Hermione hears McGonagall tell Aberforth and Mr. Weasley. "They'll be here soon."

"That should be interesting," Mr. Weasley replies bitterly. "I wonder how Fudge will excuse not stopping this from happening." Hermione turns to the window and peeks through one of the cracks in the wood. She can feel it taking her strength away, but she needs to see. From the window she sees the forest. Around half of the trees are already destroyed, and she can hear the terrified animals calling out to one another.

A gust of wind brings down more of the trees, and Hermione catches sight of Riddle in the air, going up and up and up. Then she sees Dumbledore going up as well, and the two go so high into the air Hermione has to squint to see them. Dumbledore reaches Riddle in the air, and punches him, the strength of the hit sending gusts of wind that brings rows of trees down, and Riddle is flying through the air away from them, the force of Dumbledore's hit sending him so far into the horizon that Hermione can no longer see him. Dumbledore, after delivering the punch, is coming down, and Hermione can tell that when he lands he will be causing another enormous earthquake.

"Everyone down!" She screams, plastering herself on the floor. When the earthquake hits, Hermione curls into herself, trying to keep her stomach as protected as possible, and huddles under a bed. When the roof of the house and the walls come crushing down, Hermione has to resist the instinct to cover her face, keeping her arms around her legs, which are pulled into her stomach.

Luckily, the bed holds, so she's trapped beneath the destroyed roof, but she herself is not hurt. So instead of trying to climb out on her own, the way she had when the first earthquake hit, she stays huddled into herself, one hand going up to caress her stomach.

"I'm sorry about all this," She whispers to the possibly-non-existent fetus inside her. "It's one hell of a way to start a life, no?"

Unsparingly, she receives no answer.

Sighing deeply, Hermione turns to lie flat on her stomach, looking up at the bed keeping the roof from collapsing on her. She softly caresses her stomach again, and closes her eyes, suddenly all the exhaustion of the past day and a half tumbling at her. She stifles a yawn and huddles into herself, falling asleep in a matter of seconds.

Hermione wakes up to the sound of something being moved around above her. She retracts her claws, automatically, waiting for an attack. She hears the wood of the broken roof being shuffled around, and then the bed moves slightly and Percy Weasley appears.

"Hermione!" He sounds shocked, his face covered in dirt. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Hermione replies, and accepts the assistance to dig herself out of the hole. Back on the surface, she sees that the sun has come down while she was underground, and the village is entirely destroyed. There isn't a single building left standing, and the area is full of Ministry workers and Order members. She looks around, catching sight of Ginny standing next to Harry, and relaxes slightly.

"What happened?" Hermione asks Percy as he dusts himself off (of course he does, because he would _never_ be forgiven for looking dirty while standing in a battle field). She looks around and sees, to her horror, that the forest has been demolished as well.  She can't see a single tree that's been left standing. It exposes the castle beyond it- or at least, what was once the castle and is not a pile of rubble.

"We're trying to find that out, now," Percy replies curtly, but before Hermione can ask anything else he strides away, chest out, towards the Minister himself, who's looking around with the same shocked and confused look that Sirius gave when he found Susan had painted the whole floor with paint meant for Ginny's car. The kind of look that says: _I know this isn't good but where do I begin in fixing this? And who can I blame for this?_

"Hi," Hermione hears someone saying softy behind her. She jumps up and collapses into Remus's arms.

"I'm so glad you're back," She mumbles as Remus hugs her back. "God, we were so worried. I think Sirius nearly had a heart attack. What _happened?"_

Remus shrugs, "The pack I was with was called to Hogwarts to fight by the Death Eaters, so I called to let you all know. They found me while I was talking to you, so unfortunately I needed to kill them."

He says that nonchalantly, as if taking down an entire pack of werewolf was really no big deal. It makes Hermione remember Sirius's favorite saying about his partner- _ignoring the sweater vests for a moment, Remus is fucking terrifying._ She's suddenly incredibly grateful he's on their side.

"Unfortunately?" Hermione snorts. "Seems to me like they deserved to die."

Remus pushes her away to look her in the eye, with an intensity that makes Hermione want to turn away, "I don't enjoy killing, I never have. Have you started enjoying it, Hermione?"

She shakes her head, "No."

"Good," Remus nods softly, giving her another quick hug. "I'm glad."

Hermione sighs, rubbing her still tired eyes, "Do we know where Dumbledore and Riddle are?"

"No," Remus replies. "They disappeared. We're going to go back to The Burrow soon. At least some of us. I expect the Ministry will want many of us to stay and answer some questions. This has been…a debacle."

"Understatement of the century," Hermione mumbles, and Remus's jaw clenches.

"Yes, well, I don’t think it can be denied that this whole horrendous episode could have been avoided had Fudge simply listened to Dumbledore in the first place," He shakes his head. "Despite that, I can guarantee you that the Ministry will do everything in their power to deny that exact thing."

"Politics, fucking politics," Hermione mumbles.

"One thing we definitely share with our human counterparts."

Hermione nods, and then frowns, "Remus, where's Grindelwald?"

Remus sighs and shakes his head, "I don’t know. He went after Dumbledore but he's not as fast as him."

He catches Hermione biting her tongue and adds, "We can do nothing but trust Dumbledore to end this."

***

It takes a few hours of answering Ministry questions before Mr. Weasley puts his foot down and declares that, "The young ones needs to go home, it's been a traumatic day for them," and just for once Ginny allows him to treat her like a child, if it means getting her home and away from the Ministry workers, who seem to skip her completely when  they talk, and ask questions directly to Harry, as if he's meant to answer for her. As her _creator_. Normally, she'd snap at them, demand to be treated the same as all those around her, but  she's tried, she's angry and confused and scared, she wants to huddle into a sofa with Harry and sleep, she wants to check on the Ford Angila and kiss Susan and hug Teddy, and she wants to get Hermione away from the Ministry workers, who seem to be looking at her too much.

"It's because she was created by Dumbledore," Harry tells her as they sit in the Ministry provided car, driving back to The Burrow. "They must think they can use her to get to him. That she must know what he's planning."

"I don't think he's planning anything," Ginny replies, using Harry's shoulder for a pillow. "I think he just…attacked."

"Yeah," Harry pats the Ministry worker on the shoulder as he comes to a stop. "Thanks for the ride, please feel free not to wait and see if we go anywhere, since we're not planning to. But then again, if you're job depends on it- you know what, no. Don’t' wait. Just go and get yourself fired. See if I fucking care."

The only reaction he gets is a grunt. Ginny rolls her eyes and steps out of the car.

"You're in a mood," She comments, twirking Harry's ear.

"Don’t I have- Teddy!"

"Ginny! Harry!" Teddy rushes over and allows Ginny to pick him up, his face flush with excitement. "You're back! Hermione came back to, she's inside with Susan!"

"We know," Ginny hugs Teddy tightly, deciding not to tell him that Remus has returned. She wants to see Teddy's face when Remus returns to The Burrow, the shock and delight that will play on his little face. She thinks they all need that at the moment- something simply _good._ "How are you, little man?"

"Ok," Teddy replies. "It was nice with Fleur, she taught me to say thank you in French."

"That's nice," Harry mumbles, clearly not paying attention as he opens the front door. They walk into the living room, where Hermione is sitting on the sofa next to Fleur with Susan in between them. Fleur looks up when they come in and motions them closer, pointing at the open TV in front of them.

"Listen to zis," She says quietly, hugging onto Susan.

Harry immediately sets down next to Fleur and tugs Ginny down next to them. She settles with her feet on Harry's lap and turns to the TV, which has been turned to CNN and shows a newsman sitting in front of a video of what appears to be a village destroyed by an earthquake.

"A series of bizarre earthquakes have been devastating Scotland for the past few hours," The man says. "We've received information that so far, around fifty bodies have been found. The earthquakes seem to have started i-" the man frowns and puts a finger to his ear. "And we have just received breaking news that an earthquake has devastated the city of Glasgow, just moments ago. We'll have more information shortly-"

Hermione stomps over and shuts the TV down, turning towards them, face pale, "That's Dumbledore and Riddle."

" _Oui_ ," Fleur mumbles, one hand going up to her belly while the second wraps protectively around Susan.

"He's killing all these humans," Hermione mumbles.

"He's trying to kill Riddle," Harry says quietly. "What is he supposed to do, not give it his best?"

"He destroyed Glasgow! He's killed fifty humans we know of, and you can be fucking sure it will be much, much more than that," Hermione growls, and begins stomping back and forth. Susan flinches at Hermione's aggression, and Ginny stands up and picks the little girl into her arms. Susan hugs onto her, narrowing her eyes at Hermione. Hermione seems to notice Susan's fear and stops moving, saying in a strained voice, "Sorry, Susie. Everything's fine."

 _You can't do that_ , Ginny thinks. _You can't just tell her everything is fine but not act like that. She knows, children always know._

"How are they even fighting like this, in the sun?" Harry demands. "I can barely stand up after a few minutes in the sun, and they're moving faster and stronger then I could in my best form."

"He's stronger then all of us combined, probably," Hermione growls. "Though, you'd think he'd have found a better way to so this, don’t you?"

"What did you want him to fucking do, Hermione?" Ginny suddenly snaps. "Politely ask Riddle if he minded taking the fight somewhere that's not populated?"

"I bet that didn't even occur to him," Hermione replies bitterly. "He doesn’t care much for human lives, does he?"

"Or the lives of werewolves and centaurs and all the other creatures who fought with us," Harry adds quietly. "They all died from the castle falling on their head. No healing factor, only the vampires survived."

"Look, it doesn’t matter what we think," Ginny says, kissing Susan's forehead, which causes the girl to squirm, trying to get away from the cold lips. "It's not like we can do anything about it. All we can do is watch and wait."

So that's what they do. They stay in the living room, watching the news for the next few hours. Throughout the night they watch as Dumbledore and Riddle's fight destroys Glasgow and cause tsunamis in the ocean, moving to North America, destroying around ten cities and towns in Massachusetts, before moving along the coast in New Hampshire and Maine and into Canada.

In the middle of the night, when the 'earthquakes' are in Maine and the human news seems close to hysteria, Teddy suddenly wiggles out of his seat on Harry's lap and looks around, eyes blinking. He turns to look at Ginny, and she smiles at him.

"I smell him too, darling," She takes Teddy's hand and walks with him outside. They wait in silence together for a few moments, and then the adult members of the Order appear, and Teddy lets out a shrill scream and starts running.

"Papa, Papa, Papa!" Teddy jumps into the air and is caught tightly in his father Remus's arms. Teddy screams giddily and hugs his father's neck tightly. "You're back, back, back!"

"I am," Remus replies softly and closes his eyes as he holds his son. "I missed you so much, sweetheart."

"Missed you too," Teddy replies as Sirius, who looks very much like he's trying to hold back tears, comes up to them. Ginny, who doesn't want invade the family's privacy, turns towards her own father, who comes up along with Bill.

"Fleur's inside, she's fine, everything's fine, nothing happened while you were away," She tells Bill before he can say anything, and her brother ruffles her hair before rushing into the house.

"Did you go to the Ministry?" Ginny asks her father as she slips her arm through his.

"Yes, Fudge is working on a wonderful explanation that Riddle woke up a few nights ago and going to Hogwarts was the first thing on his agenda once he woke up," Arthur Weasley says with a shake of his head, eyes cold. "Percy stayed with him."

"He's not really saying that, is he?" Ginny asks, shocked. "But they know, we told them that Riddle's back! How could they- Oh, Dumbledore is not going to like this."

"Dumbledore won’t like it at all," Her father agrees as they go back inside and sit down to watch more humans being killed by their leader and greatest enemy.

***

He doesn’t know where he is, somewhere in the ocean. His feet are planted on the ocean floor, water is pounding into him from all over, and it's so dark he can't see a thing. He can't hear anything, either, with the water in his ears, and his sense of smell is not much better either. So he's almost blind as he stands there, waiting to see what Tom will do.

He had been plunged into the water by Tom's fists a few moments earlier, and had time to sink all the way to the bottom, causing what he assumes was a major earthquake that has probably hurt a large amount of people.

He doesn't care. His prey is above him, his clever, clever prey. He hasn't had such clever prey for so, so long.  Nothing worthy of hunting down, anyway, of unleashing his most basic hunter instincts for. But this prey…this prey is worth it. This fight is worth the destruction, the way he must put away a large part of his mind for the fight. This prey is giving him a run for his money.

He'll get him in the end, of course he will, no prey has ever been able to withstand him. But he's never had one to hold out for so long, and it's sending shivers of excitement through his body. He wants to rip this vampire's heart out, to drink his blood until he's dry and leave his body to be eaten by crows. There are no crows in the Artic, though. And isn’t that where he is?

It's hard to tell. They've gone past so many cities, so much forest and desert and water, past the still figures of humans, destroyed bodies brought down by the power in their movement. There was a lot of white before he was pounded into the water, breaking the hard ice on the way down. Must have been snow.

Albus shifts slightly in the water, tilling his head slightly upwards. He can see the sun shining down and then the dark silhouette of his prey. Albus grins softly and pounds the ground with his foot. He feels it crack under him., causing the ground above to shake, shaking the silhouette along with it, and the figure tumbles down into the water.

Albus pushes himself up, hand reaching out to grab the body falling down to him. But just as his claws are about to reach his prey's chest, his wrist is caught and broken, and he's suddenly tangled in the figure, claws raking his body, the water around them growing red. He grins.

It's started again.

***

"Ginny, Ginny, wake up."

Ginny blinks and opens her eyes. Harry's standing above her, leaning outside the Ford Angila.

"What…did something happen? What time is it?" She asks, pushing herself up.

"It's two in the afternoon, I'm sorry to wake you, I just thought you'd want to see this," Harry replies, helping Ginny stand up.

"See what?" Ginny mumbles, rubbing her eyes.

Harry bites his lip, "Dumbledore's hit Paris. It's…"

"Bad?" Ginny suggests.

"Bad," Harry agrees, pulling her to the living room.

He's right, it's bad. The Eiffel Tower is entirely destroyed, the Louvre is gone as well, but that's hardly the worst part. The worst part is the bodies being dug out of the ground, mangled bodies, with broken bones and missing limbs, bodies covered in blood and brain matter from crushed skulls. Large bodies and little bodies, bodies so small they can be carried in a single arm. The news crews quickly move away from those sights, but it's too late- everyone's already seen it.

"I'm standing in front of where the Eiffel Tower stood just two hours earlier," A reporter, who looks like he just pulled himself out of a pile of rubble says quickly, clutching at his microphone like it's a teddy bear and he's a scared child who just woke up from a nightmare. "We still don’t know the causes of the quakes hitting so many different countries-"

"I know what it was!" There's suddenly a mad looking man in the background, clothes tattered, blood caking the left side of his face, eyes wild. "I saw them! It was an angel and devil, they've heralded the beginning of the Rapture-"

"Yes, sir, thank you," The reporter says quickly, and motions to the camera to cut the feed.

Ginny looks over to where Hermione is sitting with her back to the wall. She goes over and settles next to her friend, who says, "I wonder which one he thought was an angel and which he thought was a devil."

 _Riddle would be the angel, he looks like one, just like Grindelwald_ , Ginny thinks, _even though he has black hair. He's just to pretty to be a demon,_ and says, "All these humans who saw them, they'll all think that they've gone crazy. Cameras won't capture anything."

"Those who are too vocal will die mysteriously, curtsey of the Ministry, I'm sure," Hermione replies. "Though I hope not to mysteriously, or humans will think aliens are involved."

Ginny turns to look at her friend, realizing suddenly that Hermione has bags under her eyes and is struggling to keep her eyes open.

"'Mione, did you get any sleep yet?"

Hermione shakes her head, "I want to know what's going on."

"Yes, well, you won’t be able to process any information if you're sleep-deprived, and you look quite close to it now," Ginny replies firmly, standing up and pulling Hermione to her feet. Luckily, Hermione doesn’t put up any resistance as she's led to their bedroom and laid down on her bed and promptly covered by two blankets. Ginny lays down on her own bed and tuns to look at Hermione, who's laying, looking at her, eyes wide open.

"Hermione," Ginny says softly. "This will be over eventually."

Hermione snorts softly, "Will it? Do you know the limits of Dumbledore's stamina?"

Ginny hesitates, then shakes her head.

"Exactly, and why would you? It's not like we've ever seen Dumbledore fighting, not really. Not like this."

This makes Ginny cringe, because it's true. It's incredibly disturbing to see the destruction left behind by their leader, the soft-spoken kind man who they look up to and trust so much, to see how he can destroy whole cities and kill countless humans with just a swing of his fist and a stomp of his foot.

"And also, if he loses, Riddle-"

"Dumbledore isn't going to lose," There's very little Ginny is sure of right now, but of that she is. Dumbledore will win, will defeat and kill Tom Riddle. She just doesn’t know what the damage will be.

Oddly, her conviction does seem to reassure Hermione, who nods softly and closes her eyes, breath slowly slowing down.  Ginny waits until her friend is fast asleep, then softly slips out of the room, closing the door behind her, and tiptoes back to the living room. It’s nearly empty, with most everyone having gone to sleep. Even Harry isn't anywhere to be seen, and Ginny guesses that he went to catch a short nap, now that Ginny is awake and can come get him if anything changes.

Remus is the only one in the living room, along with a sleeping Teddy on his lap, who's refused to leave his father's side ever since he returned. He gives her a soft smile and she collapses into the seat beside him, staring forward at the scenes of destruction on the TV.

"Where is that?" She asks.

"Cape Town," Remus replies quietly. "It's…bad there. A lot of structurally unsound buildings."

"Africa?" Ginny shakes her head in disbelief. "How can they function in the heat of Africa? How much adrenaline do you need-"

But Remus shakes his head, "They're not running on adrenaline."

"Then what is it?"

Remus shrugs, "Dumbledore and Riddle are just…stronger then the rest of us. Stronger then the rest of us combined, I'd assume. They're stronger then any vampire that have ever existed."

Ginny thinks about that for a moment, "Stronger then Grindelwald?"

"Oh, yes, I would expect so," Remus replies. "Not that that should give you any illusions about Grindelwald. He's still the third strongest vampire alive today. No one but those two could hold out for more than a minute or so against him."

Ginny rubs her face as the images on the television change to what was once the Amazon forests and is now a desolate wasteland, "He's destroying the planet. Fuck."

" _They're_ destroying the planet," Remus corrects. "It's not just Dumbledore. Riddle is doing this as well."

 _That's true,_ Ginny thinks and pulls Remus's arm around her for a hug. _But I don’t have any expectations for Riddle to care about the things I care about. It's not Riddle is expect to protect me._

***

It's dark, and it's finally over. The sun has come down in the desert they find themselves in, and he's laying with his back against a crater he's created by slamming into a small hill, looking forward to where Dumbledore is stalking towards him, suddenly slow after the barrage of breath-takingly fast movements he showed throughout their fight.

Everything hurts, his whole body smashed to pieces. He can feel bits of shattered bone grinding into his skin from the inside, his right arm and stomach has been flayed, leaving not a single shred of the top few layers of flesh attached, a large piece of his skull is missing, as well as one eye, and the eye socket is cluttered by dried blood, so it has no room to grow back.

But pain is just pain, he's felt it before, it has no effect on him anymore, he's learned to hide it somewhere deep inside of his mind, learned to push it away until he can no longer feel it. It's a skill that one has to acquire growing up in the hands of men who see it as an act of god to cause you pain. He mastered it by age five. It's not pain that he's feeling, and not fear, either. What can he be possibly be afraid of, since he's accepted his own imminent death? There is nothing the world can hold over him anymore, to scare him.

No, what he's feeling is awe. Awe, because he finally saw it, and it was as magnificent, as beautiful, as he suspected, more stunning then his wildest dream. The image of Dumbledore ripping through human cities, destroying lands marks that have stood for thousands of years, forcing civilizations into mass hysteria, killing hundreds of those snivelling little things with one strike, his clothes being ripped to shreds until the only thing covering him is the layers upon lays of blood, and all while those blue eyes stay only on him, on Voldemort. On _Tom_. All that hatred, all that savagery, finally unleashed, no longer hiding in that deep dark place. And all just for him.

It was truly the most bewitching thing Voldemort has ever seen. But it's over now, he can see that. The hunt is over and Dumbledore is slowly returning to his former controlled self. The fire in his eyes is dulling down, exposing both the shock and horror he's feeling, his form uncoiling from his hunter's stance to a looser form, and he freezes, stopping his advancement towards Voldemort.

"Tom?" He croaks out, swallowing softly. It's difficult to see his expressions behind the dark crimson mask covering his face, but Voldemort can see his eyes, and that's enough. He's always been able to read Dumbledore's eyes far better then most. And what he reads now is mostly fear. Not fear of him. Fear for him, for Voldemort. But then again, not really for Voldemort.

For Tom Riddle.

Voldemort smiles, and it must be a horrendous sight since Dumbledore flinches backwards slightly, "So, you showed me," he rasps out, though it's hard to speak through his broken neck, clearly Dumbledore can understand what he said, since he closes his eyes softly.

"Don't give me that look," Voldemort grins again. "You seemed to be enjoying it at the time."

Trying to move his arm, he loses his balance and tumbles down to the ground, hitting his shoulder on the way down and breaking it in a few more places. He growls softly, now lying on the ground, eyes facing the night sky, unable to move.

This is not how he wants to go out. Not lying on his back staring at the sky. Ideally, he'd like to go standing up, but definitely he has to go out facing Dumbledore. He wants to see his eyes wide with horror when he goes.

***

Albus jumps as Tom tumbles to the ground and rushes forward, suddenly taken over by instinct, to protect his former student, and for a moment, as he falls down on his knees next to Tom, that's all he can see him as. A boy under his responsibility that's in danger and that he needs to help.

The instinct is quashed almost immediately, when he raises his arm to touch Tom and sees his hand, which is covered by dripping blood. He quickly puts the arm down and rubs his sticky face, trying to think what to do now. Knowing Gellert, he will have been following them throughout the entire fight, always behind them, unable to keep up with their speed. Which means he has a few minutes at most before Gellert shows up, and he knows perfectly well that if Tom is alive when Gellert shows up, Gellert will end up killing him, never mind what he promised Albus. And Albus knows he owes it to Tom to be the one to end his life.

He opens his mouth, but he doesn't know what to say. There are too many things to say, and not enough at the same time. And where would he start?

"You have to kill me now," Tom mumbles, tilting his head to look up at him. The sight of his battered face makes Albus swallow, his insides jolting in shame.

Albus rubs his face, "Tom-"

"No, you have to," Tom shakes his head, desperate. "Please, you can't put me back to sleep, please. I dream of you when I sleep. Please."

Albus freezes, and then moves forward, so his face is inches from Tom's, "What?"

Tom leans close to Albus and closes his eyes softly, "I dreamt about you all the time, I dreamt about you constantly. I can't…please, Professor, I can't do that anymore."

 _Professor_. When was the last time he called him that?

"Tom," Albus pushes himself away, settling on the ground. Tom squirms slightly and moves slightly towards Albus, leaning his head on Albus's lap. This makes Albus nearly jump up and run away, but Tom is going to die. Albus will give him whatever he can to make him…comfortable. Hesitating for a moment, Albus puts his hand on Tom's bloody head and caresses it softly.

"Tom, I'm so sorry, I never knew," He says quietly, feeling tears starting to well up in his eyes.

Tom snorts in pain, "I know. For such on intelligent man, you really have some severe blind spots, don’t you?"

_Don’t we all?_

"But even if you'd have known, it wouldn't have changed anything, would it?" Tom continues quietly. "It's not as if you would have ever loved me back. You had Grindelwald."

"But Tom," Albus blinks, shocked that Tom didn’t know. "I did love you. I still…I still love you."

Tom's body stiffens for a moment, and then relaxes back into Albus's caressing fingers, "Like a student."

"Like a son."

"You try to kill most of your sons, Dumbledore?"

Back to calling him Dumbledore. Well, Tom always did understand the power in names. He must have learned it from him. He stiffens slightly and swallows, "Tom."

"Hmm?"

"It makes no difference anymore, I know, but I want you to know-"

"You're sorry?" Tom says softly, turning around so that he's facing Albus directly. His broken hand comes up to tug at Albus's destroyed shirt, pulling him down. slightly confused, Albus allows himself to be pulled down, and suddenly there's bloody lips on his own, and Tom kisses him softly and tenderly, but before Albus can process what is happening and pull away, he's released, and Tom's arm falls back down to the ground next to his thigh.

Tom closes his eyes and murmurs, "Apologizes mean nothing, expect perhaps making yourself feel better. Forgive me if I refuse to give you that absolution." He bites his lip hard and then says, "I can smell Grindelwald. Do it now, please."

"I-"

"Now, Albus."

Albus shivers slightly at Tom's conviction, and before he can lose his nerve, he retracts his claws and pounds his open palm into Tom's chest, ripping out his heart. Tom lets out a sharp gasp and then relaxes, his body slumping into Albus, eyes fluttering closed, and for a moment Albus can pretend that he's just sleeping, but then he feels the beating heart in his fist and puts it down, reverently, like the sacred object that it is.

He looks down at Tom's body in his lap, and he looks so broken, so damaged. Albus wishes that his body wasn't this ravaged and ruined. Tom had always been so very proud of his physical attractions, so pleased to use his looks to get what he wanted from teachers and students alike. But now, his body will remain broken forever, at least until it dissolves into ash.

"I'm so sorry, Tom," Albus whispers, gathering the boy in his arms. "I'm so, so sorry it came to this."

He stays like that for what feels like a lifetime, before being jerked out of his mourning by a soft hand caressing his head.

"Albus," Gellert's calm voice wraps around him like an unwanted blanket. "Let him go, love." He's speaking in Gaelic, going to Albus's language, the one that almost makes him smell home, and hear Ariana and Aberforth laughing.

"No," Albus whispers, holding on to Tom tighter. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," Gellert tells him sternly. "He's gone, it's over. Just let go of him, Al."

"I killed him," Albus replies, slightly numb.

"Al, my love, my lovely, open your eyes, look at me."

Albus blinks, opening his eyes to see Gellert's mismatched eyes borrowing into him. He's leaning next to him, and as Albus opens his eyes, Gellert leans forward and kisses him, hard, tongue flickering into his mouth, claiming him, and he shutters, and his hold on Tom's body lessens. Immediately, the body is snatched from his arms and Gellert climbs into his lap, taking the place of the dead body, cupping his face in Gellert's soft hands, which are immediately covered in blood.

"It's over, my darling," Gellert mumbles. "It's over."

Albus shutters again, ingulfing Gellert in his arms. Gellert's hands go around him, his face nestles against Albus's neck, sniffing him.

"It's over," He says softly, eyes closing of their own accord.

"Yes," Gellert replies, "It's over."


	5. War Never Ends with The Last Bullet

_We are free to choose our paths, but we can't choose the consequences that come with them_

_-Sean Covey_

Cornelius Fudge stomps around his office, back and forth, trying very hard not to scream out loud in frustration. He has just received what seems like an endless number of letters from vampires all across the world, demanding explanations. And his resignation.

And how was that fair? He wasn’t the one who has spent three days destroying human society killing their food, and in the process also ending the lives of quite a few creature allies of the Ministry. But no one seemed to be blaming Dumbledore- everything was apparently on him. On the Minister.

"But we didn't know," Fudge says out loud, trying to sound convincing. He needs to work on the speech he's going to give the next night in front of the High Court and what he expects to be a rather large crowd of onlookers. "We had no way of knowing that Voldemort had returned, and we did everything in our power to ensure that he would not return. His body was hidden-"

He sighs and shakes his head, that wasn't going to work. He knows exactly what everyone was going to say: that he had known, that Dumbledore had warned him and he had chosen to ignore those warnings. What he really needs is a way of deflecting blame on Dumbledore, perhaps he could make the case that Dumbledore didn’t make his point strongly enough, that he, Fudge, had thought Dumbledore was simply trying to make the case that Voldemort _could_ escape, not that he _had_.

Would that work?

"Dumbledore has been known to overreact to things, how was I too know he was telling the truth this time? I'm sure you all remember he had once warned that the human population was in danger of becoming extinct in Europe-"

"And around half of them did end up dying," A cold voice says behind him, and Fudge jumps, turning around to see Dumbledore, sitting on the window frame, watching him with cold eyes. The entire room smells of garlic- Fudge uses it to disguise his own presence from any vampires that might come in search of the Minister, so of course he didn't smell Dumbledore. But why couldn't he hear him, either? How silent _was_ the other vampire? "Or, are you not referring to the Black Plague? Did I warn the Ministry of human devastation on another occasion?"

Fudge swallows, trying to force the illogical fear out of his mind. Dumbledore isn't any danger to him, Dumbledore would never hurt him, and anyway, he has guards, and he can protect himself as well. He's in no danger. At least that's what his mind is telling him. His instincts tell him to run as far as he can, as fast as he can.

"What are you doing here, Dumbledore?" Fudge asks, trying to keep his voice steady, and points to the door.  "If you wish to speak to me you may come to my office tomorrow. But this is my private residence-"

"Cornelius," Dumbledore tilts his head slightly, and Fudge realizes suddenly that he still has some blood on him, behind the ears, under his fingernails, in his hair, as though he had given himself a quick but not thorough wash before coming.  "I don’t think you want to have this conversation in front of your colleagues."

_Danger, danger, danger._

"You should know, Dumbledore," Fudge says, trying to keep fear out of his voice, and judging by Dumbledore's lifted eyebrow, failing utterly. "That I have four guards outside of the room at this very moment, and if I were to call them-"

"They're all drained," Dumbledore interrupts, voice calm and unimpressed. "It's just you and me."

A deathly silence stretches between them, and Fudge swallows, "What do you want, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore sighs and gets up from the window, moving into the room, "I wanted to talk about what has happened."

"What has happened? You were the one who did this. All these deaths, Dumbledore, they're on you."

"Yes. But they're also on you," Dumbledore replies, eyes growing hard and distant. "If you had listened to me, this wouldn't have happened. That is _not_ going to happen again."

"How dare you… what do you think you're doing? Threatening me?"

"Yes," Dumbledore replies calmly.

"I am the Minister! I hold the power of the Ministry in my hands-"

And Dumbledore laughs at that, and that is more frightening then anything else that has happened in this conversation, because Dumbledore just doesn't laugh like that, with that mixture of surprise and distain, as if he never truly realized how pathetic and stupid everyone around him is. It's a laughter that causes Fudge to shiver and taken a few steps backwards, then a few more when Dumbledore stalks straight into his personal space, slamming his fists into the wall on either side of Fudge's head, just hard enough to form cracks.

"I thought you understood, Fudge, but since you clearly don’t, I'll spell it out for you. You rule because I allow you to rule, the Ministry stands because I allow it to. If I wanted to, I could bring the whole Ministry to its knees with the kind of effort you exert in killing an inebriated human. And I will, if you ever ignore me again when I tell you how to act. You will do as I say, because if you ever refuse me again, I will rip your spine out of your body and shove it down your throat," Dumbledore's eyes glitter with a terrifying light. "Are we clear, Cornelius?"

Fudge swallows.

"Are we _clear_ , Cornelius?"

"Yes! Yes, we’re clear," Fudge jumps into the air when fangs appear.

Dumbledore nods, and pushes away from him, "Good. I'll be seeing you around, Cornelius."

It's only once Dumbledore's scent fades completely that Fudge relaxes onto the floor, and that's when he realizes that at some point, he'd wet himself.

***

"How did it go?" Gellert asks as soon as Albus appears on the roof top. He's sitting on the edge and motions Albus to come sit next to him. Instead, the other vampire simply comes to stand besides him, hands folded and looking out into the destroyed London city.

Albus shrugs his shoulders and says, "I doubt Fudge will be any trouble from now on."

"That's good," Gellert tilts his head slightly, trying to get a better view of his brooding lover. Something is clearly off with Al, he was thinking about something too hard. "Did he end up wetting hims-"

"Gellert."

Gellert closes his mouth and then raises an eyebrow, "Yes, Albus?"

"I'm leaving."

Gellert rolls his eyes, looking up at the moon, "Yes, I expected that."

Albus lets out a soft snort and then says, "But I need you to not come looking for me."

"If you want," Gellert replies absentmindly, still looking at the moon, so he doesn't see it when Albus comes forwards, and suddenly he finds himself spun and landing on his back on the roof with Albus looming over him. He blinks for a moment and then grins.

"Don’t give me that look," Albus tells him, and Gellert hums before hooking his legs around Albus's waist, eyes going over Albus's body, causing Al to roll his eyes. "Can you get your mind out of the gutter for a moment, please?"

"Well, since you asked so _nicely_ ," Gellert mumbles and grinds against Albus's belly, feeling his cock already start to harden. Al's pupils dilate slightly, but he pushes Gellert down, so his hand is pinning Gellert to the ground.

"Listen to me, Gellert," There's a sudden urgency in Albus's voice that makes Gellert stop squirming in an attempt to get his body closer to Al's. "I need you to promise you won’t come after me."

Gellert sighs, "I won’t come after you, all right?"

"Gellert, you don't mean that."

"Are you calling me a liar, Dumbledore?"

"Yes, of course I am," Albus blinks at him. "You _are_ a liar."

Gellert shrugs at that. Fair enough.

"I know when you're lying and when you're telling the truth," Albus continues. "And I know you're planning on coming after me, but this time- you can't. This time is different-"

"It's not different," Gellert objects, panic spiking in him. Al's leaving again, and for how long, this time? how long will it take, after killing Riddle, for him to return to normal? He doesn't want to think about it. "It's always the same."

"Not this time, this time I'll come back."

That causes the panic to still, replaced by confusion.

"What?" He asks, blinking up at Al.

Albus looks down at him, head slightly tilted, and says, "When I'm ready, I'll come looking for you. So, don't chase me. I'll come to you."

Gellert shakes his head in shock, "But you never do that."

"I'll do it this time," Albus grabs his wrists in his hands and pins his hands above his head. "I promise."

And then Gellert's being kissed, and for once he feels like _he's_ the one being devoured, claimed, owned, and it's so much sweeter then doing the devouring himself, and he leans into it, allowing Albus to explore his mouth, and when his hands are released he doesn’t move them, doesn't immediately raise them to touch Al's beautiful body, because Al's touching him, gently caressing his chest, raising his shirt and playing with his nipples, and Gellert gasps into Albus's mouth and he feels Albus grin before strong arms go under his head to raise him into the air and Gellert lets out what must sound like a slightly hysterical laughter and grabs handfuls of Albus's shirt, pulling them even closer to one another, so close they're like one being instead of two, and Gellert comes hot and hard from nothing but kisses, and growls softly, pushing Albus to the ground so now he's the one on top, the one in control.

But Al is laughing softly, and Gellert freezes and settles for sitting on Albus's chest while caressing his hair, and asks, "What's so funny, my love?"

Albus shrugs, "You just looked surprised, that's all." Then he sobers up and sits up, so Gellert is forced to slide down to sit on his legs.

"You won’t come looking for me?"

"I think you already know the answer to that," Gellert replies.

Albus smiles softly, and Gellert kisses him again, hard, before he disappears again.

***

Hermione sits in the Weasley family graveyard, in front of the row of graves, fingers trailing the dirt underneath the grass. In The Burrow, someone's switching TV channels, and she listens with half an ear to the human voices speaking.

"… _The death toll in the Unites States has reached fifty-one thousand…experts still unsure of what caused the freak phenomenon…I saw them, two men fighting in the sky…the mass delusion seems to have originated with a man who appeared on CNN in Paris after the city's destruction…perfectly normal, when such a traumatic event happens, for people to try and find an explanation…do we believe that all these occurrences are unconnected?..._ "

She can smell Dumbledore coming up to her, but doesn’t look up to react in any way, just waits for him to speak. It's been five days since the earthquakes finished, and she finds herself wondering what he's been doing during that time.

"I'm sorry about Draco, Hermione."

She stays seated, not looking up, but says, "I'm also sorry. About Riddle."

Dumbledore sits down next to her and places a hand on her shoulder, "Thank you."

She wonders what it says about them, that these are the men they're mourning.

They sit in silence for a moment and then Hermione says quietly, "I didn't think you'd come back."

Dumbledore pulls his legs up and places his arms on his knees, "I only came back to see you and Harry, I have something to give you, before I leave."

"For good?"

"I don’t know, Hermione."

She nods, that seems like a reasonable reply. She looks back at Rom Weasley's tombstone and says, "I don’t know where his body is, and even if it's found, I can't exactly have him buried here, can I?"

"Probably not."

Hermione sighs deeply, "What did you do, with Riddle's body?"

Dumbledore hesitates and then says, "Burned it, let the ashes scatter."

Hermione nods, "So he's part of everything now."

"Yes, he'd like that," Hermione is shocked to see Dumbledore smiling softly. "He was always…slightly ego maniacal."

He takes a deep breath and reaches into his pocket, taking out a vial holding a silvery liquid that seems to swirl around in the vial. He hands the vial to Hermione, who looks it over before placing it gently in her pocket, "What is it?"

"My memories."

Hermione blinks her eyes and shakes her head, "It's what?"

"My memories," He replies, his voice calm as still water. So, she had heard him correctly before. Huh.

"All right…" Hermione nods slowly, trying to think what it is she's supposed to do with memories.

Dumbledore give her a small smile, "In my cabin, in my closet, you'll find a pensieve, it's the stone bowl. Put the memories in and stick your head into the liquid."

Hermione gives him a quick look, "Well, that's not the strangest mission you've ever given me."

Dumbledore smiles again, but his smile doesn't reach his eyes. It hasn't reached his eyes throughout they're entire meeting.

"I'll do it with Harry."

"Good," Dumbledore nods and stands up, brushing himself off.

"Wait," Hermione jumps up, a pang of panic coursing through her. "You're leaving, now?"

Dumbledore frowns at her, "I thought you'd want me to leave."

She does, it's hard to imagine a world where he can stay, but at the same time, the thought of him _actually_ leaving terrifies her. She shuffles her feet, unable to express herself. But Dumbledore sighs deeply and places both his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eye. He searches her face for a moment and then nods, seemingly finding what he was looking for and pulls Hermione into his arms. She sighs deeply.

"Maybe you can take me with you?" She finds herself suggesting.

Dumbledore sighs, "But you don’t want to come with me, to leave everyone. You're just scared."

"Well yeah, that's true," Hermione shrugs. "But just once, can't I act out of fear just this once?"

"Absolutely not," There's a sharpness in Dumbledore's voice and he pulls her away so he can look her in the eye. His look is sharp and searching, making Hermione want to look away, it's too intense. "That's not who you are."

Hermione shuffles her feet, unable to answer.

"I didn’t create you to act out of instinct and fear, I created you because you have the ability not to do so."

"But I didn't!" Hermione cries out, pushing Dumbledore away. "I didn’t think, I just acted, I fucked a man who killed innocents for no reason. I failed, so don’t act like I'm somehow better than other people, just because you don't want to admit you made a mistake. So please, just take me with you-"

"Hermione," Dumbledore says sharply. She immediately stops talking, every instinct in her telling her to keep quiet and not antagonize the superior predator in front of her. For a moment Dumbledore studies her and then he relaxes and says softly, "Do you see? Instinct has it's uses as well."

Hermione nods, not trusting herself to speak yet.

"And as for your sleeping with Draco, it might not have been the most logical decision at the time, but it's done. And it has left something quite good behind."

Hermione's head jerks up, "I don’t know if-"

"I do," Dumbledore interrupts, and then smiles gently. "My sense of smell is stronger than yours."

"You can smell-" Hermione shakes her head and nods, accepting that. It's odd how easily she accepts it, hand going to her stomach almost on its own accord. She clears her throat and says, "That's not good."

"Why not?" Dumbledore asks gently. "You don’t want this?"

"No, I…I do," Hermione shakes her head, "It's just…"

"You don't think you can do it?"

"I can’t," Hermione replies sharply. "I'm all alone."

"You are not," Dumbledore shakes his head. "You have Harry, and the Weasley family, and you have the Marauders. You will never be alone in this. You will absolutely be able to do this."

Hermione swallows, looking down at the ground, "You think so?"

"Hermione, I know so," Dumbledore replies with conviction, and when Hermione looks up she sees him smiling down at her, softly and kindly.

She stands slightly shocked as Dumbledore sighs deeply and walks away, his scent disappearing far quicker then usual. He must be running away.

***

"Ready?" Hermione asks him.

Harry nods, looking down at the pensieve, "On the count of three?"

"One, two, three," Hermione says, and they plunge their heads into the liquid.


	6. The Life and Death of Ariana Dumbledore

_The past is never dead. It's not even past_

_-William Faulkner_

Harry blinks his eyes. He's in a small stable, with a few cows and horses walking around freely. The place looks incredibly old, made of a steady grey stone. There are two young boys in the room, one around six and the other perhaps two years younger. Both boys have auburn hair and blue eyes. Harry knows immediately who he's looking at: Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore (he'd met Aberforth after the end of the Hogwarts' battle). They're sitting next to each other, both dressed in grey wool tunics, wincing at the sound of screaming coming from rather far away. Listening to the screaming, Harry recognizes it comes from a female voice letting out curses that he can somehow hear both in modern English and in what he assumes is some kind of ancient Celtic language. It's like listening to an echo, but the echo is translated for his benefit.

There's blood in the air as well, the blood of a vampire that's mixed with a whole mess of bodily fluids that Harry had only smelled once, and that was during Teddy's birth. Some vampire is giving birth. Harry looks at the two boys, who are nervously hugging their legs to their knees. He wonders if they know what is happening, or if their fear is simply from being children who are faced with something unknown.

Albus lets out a small groan and stands up, starting to stomp around. Harry follows him with his eyes, and how strange is it, that Albus Dumbledore was once a sweet and innocent child with bright eyes that hid nothing and an open face. You can always tell when a child trusts the world. there's something in their eyes, even when they're scared, that tells you that they have a deep-seated knowledge that no matter how scary things get, they will be saved and protected. The child Albus has that light in his eyes.

"She's screaming," Aberforth mumbles, and Albus stops his pacing to look at his little brother. He tilts his head and winces at the resumed screaming. It makes Harry's heart grow a bit, to see Albus Dumbledore turn away to hide his fear from the younger boy.

"Remember what Father said? It's normal for her to be in pain," Harry can hear the effort Albus is putting in sounding self-assured. "It means nothing."

"But-" Aberforth stops and sniffs the air. The screaming has stopped and there's a new scent in the air, one Harry recognizes right away- a squib.

"Ariana's born," Hermione mumbles next to him. He frowns at her.

The door to the little hut bursts open and a man storms in. He resembles both boys and so Harry is unsurprised when Albus says, "Father, what is that smell?"

The man hesitates for a moment and then says, "It's your new sister. Now come with me. We need to leave."

"Leave where?" Albus whispers as his father picks both of them up, balancing them on his hips.

"To Ireland, to your mother's _túath_."

Before either child can reply, the scene melts away.

***

They're in a field now, it's green and beautiful and full of goats and sheep. The only man-made structure to be seen is a grey castle on the horizon. It's not very large to Hermione's eyes, but she supposes that for the time they're in it probably is. She's taken out of her observations by the sight of the three Dumbledore siblings. Albus is older now, around ten, and he's laughing sweetly as Aberforth holds up a newly born kid goat. The younger brother is grinning with pride as Ariana, a little blond angel, comes up to touch the animal.

"We did it," Aberfroth says in awe, cradling the animal. "Brother, sister, we did it."

"We should name her," Ariana squeaks. And looks up at Albus. "May we, brother?"

 _Dumbledore was a beautiful child_ , Hermione thinks as she looks at the boy, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. His hair is long and held back from his face by a black band that leaves his face bare and brings out his blue-blue eyes. He possesses an ethereal beauty, a kind of delicate charm that makes Hermione want to hold him to her, keep him safe from the world she knows will soon harder him.

"We may," He tells Ariana. "What will her name be?"

"Scáthach," Aberforth says, giving the name of an Irish mythological female warrior. The animal lets out a bleat as she's put down next to her mother.

"Very well," Albus shrugs his shoulders and gives Ariana another tight hug, causing her to laugh sweetly.

 _They named the goat after a figure from a human religion_ , Hermione thinks. _And none of them seemed to care._

***

"How come we never meet any other vampires?" Albus is asking as Harry and Hermione materialize next to him. He's twelve or thirteen now, and he's grown taller.

They're in what appears to be some kind of office, full of maps (that are missing half of the world), as well as quills and ink pots. The whole place smells like an old library. It's rather soothing. Albus is watching the skyline while his mother sits behind him and watches hm. She's a beautiful woman, with dark hair and searching eyes, but her son doesn’t take after her. She has too much that is hard about her, where there is only softness in her son.

 _She's suffering,_ Harry thinks, looking at her eyes scanning her eldest child's back, _and he doesn’t know what that word means. He's safe._

It's strange to see Dumbledore like this, innocent and unknowing of the dangers of the world. It occurs to Harry that neither he nor Hermione had the luxury of a safe childhood, had no point in their lives when they were unaware of how complicated being alive truly was. Not that he had had it as bad as Hermione- but he had been raised with a piece missing, his mother both absent and very much present. He was raised always very aware of death and losss.

"You know why, my son," She says, and her voice is rich, proud and incredibly beautiful.

"Because of Ariana," He looks at the humans walking around underneath the window in a large courtyard.

"Yes."

"Will we ever go back to England?" Albus touches the glass, and Harry assumes that the name was put through some translation, because he's _almost_ sure it wasn't called English in what appears to be the first century.

His mother hesitates and then says, "One day."

She doesn't add, when your sister dies, but the words echo around the room. Albus bites his lower lip.

"I hate it here," He announces darkly.

"Why, my son?"

He looks down at the humans, and there's a flicker of something in his eye, the beginning of hatred, and for the first time since they've started the tour of his dreams, Harry sees Dumbledore in the eyes of that little boy. "I don’t like them, why do they stay here? If I were them, I'd run away."

"We protect them, your father is their lord."

"We drink from them."

"There are many dangers facing humans in this world, Albus. We keep them safe from those dangers."

"Pointless," Albus replies. "They'll die anyway."

***

The nanny goat is laying on the ground, whimpering pathetically, body torn open and insides splayed on the ground next to her. Hermione can smell the animal predator in the air and looking around she sees it had got quite a few of the animals. But this one appears to be the only nanny goat Albus cares about, since he walks straight to her and snaps her neck.

"I'm sorry, Al," His father says, coming up from behind him and rubbing his shoulder comfortingly.

"We shouldn't have given her a name," Albus's voice is quiet and flat, as if all the life has been drained out of it. "It just makes it harder when they die."

***

Ariana lays in a large bed, covered in animal pelts. She's around ten now, even more beautiful then she was as a little child. Hermione feels a clutch in her heart at the realization that they're quickly approaching her untimely death. She hopes desperately that Dumbledore's memories won't include her death. It's not something she wants to see.

Albus is laying next to her in the bed, telling her the story of the creation of the first vampires, his tone measured and melodical, meant to soothe and put to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to be working. The girl's face is flushed red, she's sweating profusely and shivering, her fingers, still small, are clutching her brother's larger hand to her chest tightly, as though she's afraid that he might disappear if she lets go.

Albus's second hand goes up to her forehead, and he says, quietly, "Does that help, sister?"

"Yes. Your hand is cold and I am very hot right now," Ariana's voice is raspy and weak, but there is a strength to her at the same time. Not the kind of strength that would stop her from dying, but the kind of strength that would stop her from dying without dignity. Her eyes flicker to Albus and she says, "I'm afraid, brother. I think I will die soon."

Albus stiffens, then shakes his head, "No, you will not die. I will turn you and then you will live-"

"Albus."

Hermione jumps and turns around, seeing Dumbledore's father and brother come into the room. Aberforth rushes to Ariana's side and settles down on the other side of her. Albus and his father narrow their eyes at one another and the young man detaches himself from his sister and walks up to his father.

"What?" Albus sneers at his father, who narrows his eyes.

"I thought your mother talked to you about this," The elder Dumbledore says, and Hermione cringes at the venom in his voice.

Albus tilts his head away from his father, avoiding his eyes.

" _Albus_ ," His father snaps.

"What?" Albus snaps right back, not looking at his father, as if he's not even worth looking at. "I understand, no talking to Ariana about turning. You agree with Mother. You don't think Ariana's life is not worth savi-"

The slap is hard enough to echo in the chamber. Aberforth freezes and huddles closer to Ariana as Albus spits blood and a few teeth out of his mouth. He keeps his eyes away from his father.

"Don't speak about things that you do not understand," There's a tremble in the vampire's voice now. "You have no idea how much we value your sister. Enough to allow her to die with dignity."

"There is no dignity in death, Father."

Still not looking at his father and with his head held up in a dignified manner, Albus Dumbledore walks out of the room. Only Harry and Hermione follow him.

***

When they materialize again, Albus is still wearing the same clothes, and he still smells of a sick Ariana. He's standing in the middle of a horse stable, drinking from a small stable boy, no older than his sister. The boy's eyes are closed and he's twitching feebly, body covered in spilled blood.

Albus detaches himself from the boy's neck and pushes him away with a disgusted sound, letting the child fall to the ground. He wipes his blood covered mouth and then freezes, sniffing the air. Harry can smell it as well- another vampire is approaching.

Another vampire with a very familiar scent.

Albus doesn't move as Gellert Grindelwald comes into the stable. He's younger then Albus by a year of two, and his hair is cropped close to his head. The mismatched eyes, which on an adult Grindelwald create a stunning beauty, are rather disturbing on a young teen, as though someone had plastered adult eyes on an otherwise childish face.

The two not-quite-adults observe one another and then Grindelwald days, speaking in some kind of Germanic language, "There's still blood in him, you know."

Albus doesn't take his eyes off Grindelwald. He seems half way hypnotized and Harry really can't blame him. He hasn't seen any vampire other then his family for years, and in any age, there is something arresting about Grindelwald.

"He'll die if I drink more," Albus replies in the same language, and Grindelwald's eyes widen when he realizes Albus can understand him. Albus's lips twist into a bad parody of a smile. "My parents won't be pleased."

Grindelwald tilts his head, considering that, and says, "You're one of the Dumbledores', I presume? The ones who left because of the squib?"

"I am," Albus kicks the child out of the way as he moves closer to Grindelwald, inspecting him. He doesn’t even notice he's doing that. The boy is just in his way, so he moves him. "And who are you?"

"Gellert Grindelwald," Grindelwald replies.

"You're rather young to be travelling on your own, Gellert Grindelwald. Where is your family?"

Grindelwald shrugs, "I wouldn't know. I left them some time ago."

Albus frowns, "Why?"

That gets another shrug, "They were boring me."

Apparently that's just the right thing to say, since Albus bursts into a smile that lights up his whole face and Harry blinks, never having noticed before just how sweet Albus Dumbledore's smiles could be.

"Albus," He interduces himself, reaching out his hand.

"Pleasure," Grindelwald replies, and then, to Harry's shock, he blushes. Grindelwald _blushes_.

"You can finish the boy, if you’re hungry," Albus says, and there's a gleam in his eyes as he observes the blush. The gleam of someone discovering for the first time he can have _that_ kind of power over people. But the only thing Harry can think is, _but if he drinks the boy will die_.

It doesn’t seem that either of the vampires care about that, as Grindelwald mumbles a thanks before grabbing the boy and starting to drink, eyes never leaving Albus's face.

***

"Brother!" Aberforth's yell can be heard as Albus approaches the castle, and Hermione looks up just in time to see Aberforth jumping down next to his brother. Albus's face breaks into a smile and he pulls Aberforth into a strong hug.

"Aberforth," Something in Albus relaxes as he holds his brother, sniffing his neck to take in his scent to make sure he's well.  

"Where were you?" Aberforth demands, untangling himself. "Mother and Father are concerned, they went looking for you-"

Albus frowns as he interrupts, "I was only gone for a few days."

Aberforth gives Albus a strange look.

"You were gone for two months," Aberforth tells him.

Albus blinks, "Truly?"

Aberforth shakes his head fondly, "Where did you go this time? Did you find a particularly interesting tree that you had to examine again?"

"No, I met someone," Albus starts but then stops himself, probably remembering that he's not supposed to be meeting other vampires, that it's dangerous for Ariana.

"Who did you meet?" Aberforth asks, innocent of his brother's dilemma. Something in Hermione breaks slightly when she sees Aberforth lean against Albus, completely trusting and relaxed with his brother.

"A human traveler from Norway," Albus lies and winces slightly, making Hermione wonder if maybe this is the first time he's ever lied to his brother.

"Oh," Aberforth rolls his eyes. "Now I understand. Come inside, brother. You must tell Ariana and me everything."

Albus allows himself to be pulled away, and Hermione can see the shame in his face for lying quickly melt away in favor of a smug smile that his brother fell for his lies so easily.

***

"Where will you go, next?' Albus asks. He's sitting with Grindelwald with his feet dangling in the water of a calm little pond, head tilted slightly to the side, watching Grindelwald. Some time seems to have passed, since Grindelwald's hair is slightly longer, tickling his neck, and he's dressed similarly to Albus.

Grindelwald shrugs lightly, "I don’t think about it, I just go."

Albus looks away, biting his lip slightly, "I wish I could come with you, when you leave."

Grindelwald swallows, "You can. I wish you would."

"I can’t," Albus shakes his head. "I can't leave Ariana."

"Well," Grindelwald mumbles. "I suppose I will just have to stay until she dies, then. It won’t be so long."

Harry waits for Albus to say something, to object the cold treatment of his little sister. But Albus just smiles shyly and looks away.

***

"I'm hungry," Grindelwald mumbles as he stalks after Albus in the streets of a small town.  He's grown by a year or two.

Albus stops, causing Harry to bump into him-or rather, go right through him. He turns to look at Grindelwald and raises an eyebrow, "See anything you want?"

"Hmm," Grindelwald looks around, scanning the peasants walking by. He jerks his chin towards a young red-haired woman with dirty clothes and a dirtier face. "How about her?"

Albus follows her with his eyes, a look in his eyes that makes Harry decide that if that look is ever directed at _him_ he needs to either escape to the moon or dig himself into the center of the Earth, because a look that is that predatory should not be allowed to exist outside of horror movies.

He looks at Hermione to see what she's thinking about the terrifying look, but she's looking at Grindelwald, not at Albus, and so he turns to look at the blond as well.

He's looking at Albus with venom and a not inconsiderable amount of jealousy, his eyes narrowing. _He wants to eat her!_ Harry feels like screaming, _what's the jealousy for?_ Grindelwald clears his throat and says, "Let's have a hunt."

Albus blinks, "A hunt?"

"Yes, we'll see which of us can kill her first," Grindelwald jumps slightly in the air in a disturbingly childish manner. _Of course potential murder gets him all excited,_ Harry thinks. Grindelwald grins at Albus expectantly, and Harry can see Albus's doubts melt in the face of that excitement and he nods, hesitant.

"Very well," He says.

"Wonderful," Grindelwald says and kicks Albus in the throat before dashing after the girl.

It worries Harry how easily Albus Dumbledore falls into the role of hunter and inhuman monster. His eyes flicker and slightly glaze over, a growl issues from deep within his chest and he pounces at Grindelwald, stopping him in his tracks and breaking his shoulder with a _crack_.

It occurs to Harry that he'd assumed that all of Dumbledore's worst tendencies were programmed into him by centuries spent being exposed to Gellert Grindelwald. But it seems that all he needed was the smallest push to fall right into the darkness.

And fall he does. Harry clutches Hermione's hand as they follow the pair throughout the small town. Grindelwald and Dumbledore stalk the poor girl, who very quickly realizes that something is very wrong, that there's someone after her. But all she does is clutch the wooden cross on her neck, not even speeding up, so trusting in her God to protect her. He doesn’t, of course. Her God just watches as the two vampires torment her for hours.

That’s the truly terrifying part of the whole situation. Dumbledore and Grindelwald could have killed her easily and in seconds, but instead they spent hours toying with her, scaring her and jumping on her, grabbing her in the arms and biting her on the neck, always letting go just before they cause true damage. By the time they finish their game, she's hyperventilating and near mad with fear.

Grindelwald grabs her arm as she starts running into a little shack Harry assumes she lives in, jerking her backwards hard enough to cause a yelp of pain to issue from her, but as he opens his mouth and exposes his fangs, Dumbledore swoops in and grabs her, pulling her away from Grindelwald, who keeps a hold on the girl's wrist. As the girl's body is pulled in one direction and her arm in another, there's a very loud and very clear _crack_ and her bone is suddenly visible sticking out of her flesh.

The girl screams and her body flails in the air. Dumbledore raises an eyebrow and says, "You've broken her."

"Please, m'lord, please-" She gasps, looking at Dumbledore pleadingly, clearly recognizing him as a rich member of her society, someone she's meant to trust and bow down to her. He's not Grindelwald, who is clearly an outsider, a traveller from far away.

"We don’t need her arms to work," Grindelwald tells Dumbledore. "You just need her blood."

"Yes, but who wins?" Dumbledore looks down at the girl, no pity in his eyes.

Grindelwald tilts his head slightly and then says, "Never mind her. We should have a better competition. See who can kill more humans before the sun comes up?"

Dumbledore looks down at the girl, seemingly considering the suggestion, then he smiles, a sweet and open smile that should really, considering the circumstances, be dark and creepy but isn't at all.

"Stay away from my father's castle and his humans," Dumbledore says. And off they go again.

The score is forty-three to fifty-one at the end of the night, with Dumbledore the clear winner. As they count their kills, Grindelwald keeps his eyes on Dumbledore, as though he's incapable of looking away from him. Dumbledore's eyes are alight with a dangerous fire that makes Harry automatically put a protective hand up to keep the predator away from Hermione, and he's covered in human blood that he licks from his arms and shirt.

"What do I win?" Dumbledore asks as the two go inside a little shack to hide from the sun. Grindelwald slumps down on the ground and looks up at Dumbledore. His tongue goes out to wet his lips so quickly Harry almost misses it. Dumbledore doesn’t, if the darkening of his eyes is anything to go by.

"What do you want?" Grindelwald asks quietly.

"How about-"

The dream cuts off, and Harry's incredibly grateful for that. He's almost a hundred percent sure he knows what Dumbledore asked for.

***

Things go down hill from there, and Dumbledore doesn't seem to have spared Harry and Hermione anything. As Harry and Hermione watch the memories, Dumbledore and Grindelwald kill their way throughout the Celtic lands, causing enough death to be considered a natural disaster. Scene after scene unfold before their eyes, Dumbledore destroying whole cities, hazing castles to the ground, bathing in blood. He lets them see, also, how he tortures the humans, tilting his head in interest at the different sounds the humans make as he breaks bone after bone in their body, as he rips arms and legs out of bodies to watch the blood spray on his face.

The memories always stop just as Grindelwald looks at Dumbledore in a certain hungry fashion and Dumbledore looks back with a sly smile, and Hermione is incredibly glad that they aren't forced to see that, but it's disgusting and disturbing enough to know that Grindelwald and Dumbledore's sexual relationship was built out of a shared blood lust and love of devastation and cruelty.

As she watches, it occurs to Hermione that the destruction he brought on in order to kill Riddle was not a fluke or a one-of-a-kind event, but a return to form for Dumbledore, simply one more incident in a long line, just a single part of a machine that has been constructed long ago and has simply lied dormant for so very long. And she can understand why he had to leave them, how ashamed he must have felt to have fallen back into this mind set, the one that sees the world as one huge game.

He disappears for days and weeks and months at a time, returning to see his brother and sister have grown, watching as with each return the people he loves take one step after another away from him, but Dumbledore doesn’t seem to care. Doesn't seem to notice how Aberforth follows him with narrowed eyes and his mother watches with fear as her eldest child grows distant from her.

***

Dumbledore is lying in a large bed with his siblings on either side of him. Both Ariana and Aberforth are sleeping, breath soft against their brother. Their bodies are curled into Albus, completely relaxed, trusting so entirely in their sleep. Dumbledore's eyes are wide open, his arms around his siblings. He's looking up at the ceiling, eyes narrow as he listens intently, regulating his breath to fit his brother and sister and twirling a finger through Ariana's blond hair. It's a sweet scene that Hermione doesn’t have the time to appreciate before she hears Dumbledore's mother talk above them.

"They're sleeping, Percival," She says quietly.

Dumbledore's father lets out a series of impressive curses and then says, "Where does he _go_ , Kendra? I try to ask him, to talk to him about it-"

"I know, I know," Kendra Dumbledore says softly. "I tried to talk to him, as well."

"We shouldn’t let him leave home anymore," Percival Dumbledore snaps. "He's killing humans, Kendra."

"We don’t know that, my love," Kendra says in a soothing voice.

Albus tenses up slightly, relaxing back down when Aberforth mumbles in his sleep.

"Is that so? He smells of blood every time he comes home."

"He's a child, he wants to experiment," Kendra replies. "He'll realize soon enough that killing humans will give him no satisfaction."

"He's not a child, my darling, he's nearly seventeen. If he were a human, he would be a father and husband by now."

"We're not humans, Percival. He's not a human, no matter what his sister is."

Albus Dumbledore looks down at his sister, who frowns in her sleep and attaches herself to Albus's arm. He bites his lip and turns away, as though unable to look at his baby sister.

"It could put us in danger, his behavior. Garner the kind of attention we're trying to avoid." Percival says quietly.

***

Ariana Dumbledore is older now, in her early-teens. She's stunningly beautiful in a sweet angellike way, and Albus Dumbledore stops in his tracks as he approaches her. She's sitting on a large rock surrounded by grazing goats and green fields. She smiles softly as her brother comes to sit on the ground at her feet. Ariana leans over to run a hand through his hair. Albus sighs and tilts into Ariana's touch. He's dressed in a simple grey tunic that is almost entirely covered in blood. But Ariana doesn’t seem to mind, hugging onto her brother, ignoring the blood.

"You were gone for three days this time," Ariana says softly. "That was not so long."

Dumbledore snorts and looks up at her, "Is that disappointment I hear?"

"Just a bit," Ariana shrugs, brutally honest. "When you return, Mother gets upset and Father gets angry."

 "Hmm," Albus closes his eyes as Ariana caresses his head. "Yes, I know. Father is very angry all the time, and Mother is always very upset."

Ariana frowns down at him, "Don't you care that you upset them, Albus?"

Albus shrugs.

Ariana bit her lip and says, "Who were you with? Him?"

"Him? Who's him?" Albus keeps his eyes closed, body becoming rigid. "I wasn't with anyone."

"You were with Grindelwald," Ariana says. Albus's eyes fly open and turn to Ariana, gaze cold.

"How do you know about him?" Albus snaps.

Ariana doesn’t flinch away from her brother's death stare and says, "My maid told me about him, our humans are talking about him. They say he's a demon come from Germania to kill us all."

"He's not," Albus tells her. "He's just a vampire, Ariana. Just like I am, just like Aberforth and our parents are."

"Not the same," Ariana shakes her head, and then her eyes get as hard as Albus's. "You and him are not the same as our parents- you're killers."

"Ariana," Dumbledore grabs her hand, eyes wide. "You can't tell Mother and Father about him, please. They'll force him to leave. He's the only person I have. I need him. Please?"

"But-"

"Ariana," Albus snaps, eyes cold. "We're here because of you. Let me have this one thing."

Ariana hesitates and then sighs, "I won’t tell anyone."

Albus smiles and relaxes back against his sister, "Thank you, Ari. Thank you."

***

Dumbledore stands in front of a monastery, an ocean of bodies around him. Most of the bodies are those of monks, but there are also animals, ripped to shreds, though their blood seems to have remained in their bodies, spilling out of them but not drained.

 _He didn’t mean to kill the animals_ , Hermione realizes with a start. _He just…didn't notice he was killing them._

Dumbledore stretches, his face covered entirely in blood. He stills, arms in the air, and slowly moves across the ocean of bodies, stepping on the dead humans with elegance, his hair twisting in the wind behind him. Hermione follows, hearing what he must be hearing as well: the shuffling of a human trying to escape the mass of bodies.

It's one of the monks, using only one hand to maneuver himself as his second is sticking out in a way it definitely is not supposed to. The monk breathes heavily as he crawls on the ground, and lets out a scream as Dumbledore's hand comes to grasp his ankle and pull him back.

"I thought I killed you," Dumbledore says with a raised eyebrow. Hermione swallows hard. "Must have missed you."

The monk's eyes widen in fear, but he manages to stick his hand into the folds of his robe and pull out a silvery cross. Albus sighs deeply, sounding almost disappointed.

"That didn't help your friends, it won't help you either," He says, almost patiently and grabs the cross, throwing it into the air.

"And how do you know, demon, that it did not help them?" The monk raps.

Albus smiles, licking his lips, "They're blood in my veins tells me that."

But the monk shakes his head, "You have given them a noble death, defending a house of God with their life-blood. They will be welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven after such a service to the Lord."

Something dark flashes through Dumbledore's eyes, and he grabs the monk by the neck, pulling him up towards him.

"Is that what you think?" He sneers. "That death will give you a dignity that life denied you? Death is just death, there is nothing noble in it. There is nothing noble in pain." He pushes him to the ground, getting up and walking away, body still graceful and beautiful, face ugly with fury.

***

"Oh, fuck me!" Harry snaps, the first time he's spoken since the reel of memories had started. "Didn't we watch enough of these?"

Hermione doesn’t turn to look at him as they speed up after Dumbledore and Grindelwald, who are chasing a young child across a long beach, the sky stormy above them. The girl is at the most six years old, with black haired tied behind her in a long braid. Grindelwald catches up with the girl and grabs at the braid, forcing the poor girl to a stop. She lets out a loud yelp, tears running down her cheeks, eyes wide with fear.

Grindelwald lets out a sigh, pulling the girl closer to himself, and says, "Do you want her?"

Dumbledore shrugs and says, "I'll start, I'll leave you half of her."

"Very well," Grindelwald pushes the girl towards Albus, who opens his mouth and grabs the girl's wrist, sinking his fangs into the girl. Hermione turns away, not wanting to watch the girl being drained. After a few minutes Grindelwald lets out a sharp intake of air. Hermione looks back in time to see Grindelwald pulling the girl away from Dumbledore. Dumbledore blinks up at him as the girl falls to the ground, dead.

"I thought you were going to leave me some of her," Grindelwald pouts, narrowing his eyes at Dumbledore.

"I did," Albus mumbles, seemingly still in a feeding frenzy. "Didn't I?"

"No, you did not," Grindelwald kicks the child's body and frowns. "Why didn't you stop, Al?"

Albus blinks, looking down at the child, "I didn’t mean to drain her. I just…couldn't stop."

 _Oh my God_ , Hermione thinks with a start. _Albus Dumbledore is addicted to hunting._

***

They're in the office again, Kendra Dumbledore and Albus, standing in the same position as they were before, with Albus looking down at the courtyard by the window and Kendra sitting on one of the large chairs, looking at her son.

"We need to leave," Kendra is saying quietly. "The castle won't survive the winter without the fortifications, and it's far too important a job to trust to one of our servants."

"For how long?" Albus asks softly, not looking at his mother.

 "A few weeks," Kendra replies, watching her son's back. "If you want, you can come with us-"

"What, and leave Aberforth in charge of the castle?" Albus raises an eyebrow. "I'll stay."

"You'll stay," Kendra says softly. "That means staying here for the whole few weeks. That means, Albus, not going out for even a day."

 _No meeting with Grindelwald_ , she leaves that part unsaid, and Hermione doesn’t understand why, if she's so desperate to keep her son from Grindelwald, she isn’t just taking him with her and her husband, but she supposes that Kendra is more afraid to leave Ariana without protection then she is of anything Dumbledore can do when left unsupervised.

_Or maybe she knows what he's been up to these past few years and just doesn’t think it can get any worse._

Hermione gets the distinct feeling that Kendra Dumbledore is wrong on that account. Things can always get worse.

"I understand, Mother," Albus replies. "I'll stay."

Kendra nods, "You'll drink from our people-"

"No draining, yes, Mother, I _understand_ ," Albus rolls his eyes, suddenly looking like a little child again, turning and smiling softly at his mother, and Hermione can see the moment when Kendra decides to ignore her instincts nd allow her son to remain behind.

Kendra gets up and moves over to Albus. He's taller than her now, and looks down at his mother with a sweet smile as she reaches out to touch his nose softly.

"You'll take care of Ariana, yes?" She asks softly. "You'll watch over her-"

"I'll take care of Ariana, I'll watch over her."

***

"You should feed," Aberforth says without prelude as he stomps his way into the bedroom where Albus is reading on his bed. The older brother raises an eyebrow and puts the heavy tome down.

"What's that, brother?" He asks.

"I said that you should feed," Aberforth repeats, jumping on his brother's bed and plonking down with his head on his brother's knees. "You haven't fed since Mother and Father left. You must be hungry."

Dumbledore hesitates then looks up at the ceiling, "I'm fine, Aberforth."

"You're not hungry?"  Aberforth frowns.

"Only a bit." Even Harry can tell that's a lie. Dumbledore's face is slightly pale, and his fingers are shivering as he places them on Aberforth's forehead in a protective fashion. He glares up at the ceiling, as if he expects dangers to his brother to come from up there and is daring anyone to attack.

"Then come with me, we can feed from Ariana's maid," Aberforth suggests. "I was going to her today anyway."

"I-" Albus sighs and shakes his head.

"Why won't you come with me?" Aberforth demands. "Don't you want to feed-"

He narrows his eyes and sits up, grabbing Albus's chin and forcing him to look him dead in the eye. Albus allows himself to be manhandled and blinks down at Aberforth, clearly unsure what exactly his brother can see.

"Oh, I see," Aberforth sneers. "It's no fun for you, without the hunt, is it?"

Albus's eyes widen slightly and he pushes Aberforth away from him, "What do you know about it, brother? You've only ever had meals handed to you on a silver platter."

Aberforth frowns, "You'd rather scare and kill humans."

"I…" Albus shakes his head, then swallows. "I won't leave, not until Mother and Father return. I promise. All right?"

"All right," Aberforth says, but his eyes are still just as accusing and dark as he turns away from his brother. "You're staying?"

"I'm staying," Albus affirms. "Why? Do you want to go somewhere?"

Aberforth blushes, hiding his face in a pillow, and Albus smiles.

"Oh, you do, don't you? Where do you want to go?"

"A few of our people are going to the market," Aberforth mumbles into the pillow. "They say there will be animals brought over from Denmark. But… I can't, you know that. It's far and Mother and Father don't let us-"

"Abe," Albus grabs his brother's wrists and pulls him up into the air. "Go. I'll stay with Ariana."

"But Mother and Father-"

"Mother and Father don't need to know," Albus says sternly. "I promise I'll take good care of Ariana, you can go. We deserve to leave this place once in a while."

Aberforth hesitates, and then nods slowly, a brilliantly sweet smile breaking out to illuminate the room, "I'll go. Thank you, Al."

***

"You look sick, brother."

"Do I?" Albus asks idly, staring out the window, clutching a pillow to his chest. He _does_ look sick, skin pale and eyes slightly dull. Harry knows that look- it's the look of a vampire who hasn't fed for at least two weeks.

"You should feed," Ariana comes into the room, seemingly reading Harry's thoughts. "It's been two and a half weeks since Mother and Father left, and you haven't fed at all during that time. Our people are talking about it, they're worried."

Albus turns to look at his sister, head titled slightly, and shrugs, "I'll eat if I feel the need."

"One of my maids told me that her father was attacked last night," Ariana adds, quietly. "A figure came at him out of the darkness and slashed at his arm, but didn't feed from him. They think is was Grindelwald. But we know better, don't we?"

Albus gives her a long look before saying, "I almost fed from him."

"You should have, you'd feel better."

Dumbledore shakes his head, "No, I felt…Ariana, if I had started feeding, I wouldn't have been able to stop. I would have drained him."

Ariana swallows softly before coming to curl against her older brother.

"Tell me, dearest brother, when was the last time you fed from a human without killing them?" Ariana asks, voice completely calm. But he eyes are ablaze.

Albus seems to need to think about it, before shaking his head and saying, "I don’t…I don’t remember, sister."

The silence stretches between them, strained and heavy, before Ariana closes her eyes and says, "Don’t feed, then, wait for Aberforth to return and then go on a hunt with your Grindelwald. We will prey not to need your strength before our family returns."

 _Prey_ , Harry thinks as the memory dissolves. _Who do you prey to, Ariana Dumbledore?_

***

Something close is burning. Albus Dumbledore's eyes fly open and he jumps out of his bed. Legs weak and shaking, he makes his way to the window.

It's midday, the sun blaring down on Dumbledore from right above. For a moment Hermione stares at the sun. She's in a dream, it can't hurt her, and this is the first time in around twenty years that she's been able to look at the sun with no ill effects. It's beautiful. She almost forgot how beautiful the sun is, when you could just look at it.

Her mind is wretched from the pleasant thought by the _fire_ consuming the surrounding rolling hills, and the smell of hundreds of humans approaching.

She can't see them yet, but she can smell and hear them. They're calling out to God, asking for guidance and protection in their mission to rid the world of an agent of Lucifer, and they stink of sweat. The mob has been walking for some time now. But maybe 'mob' is not the right word. It's more of an army, an army coming up to return a demon to Hell.

Dumbledore lets out a sharp swear, detaching himself from the window. He doesn’t seem nearly as effected by the sun as Hermione would be, but he's still noticeably weaker and wobblier on his feet then he was before as he makes his way to the door. Just as he moves to open it, the door swings open, admitting a ferocious looking Ariana.

"Albus," Ariana says softly.

"You need to run," He says as soon as he sees who's barged into his room. "Get everyone ready-"

"We can’t," Ariana shakes her head, beautiful blond hair jumping back and forth. "We have old men and young babies. We'll never be quick enough to get away."

"Ariana," Albus gabs her shoulders, tighter then he meant, if Ariana's flinch is anything to go by. "They're here to kill me, they're not here for you."

Ariana narrows her eyes at her older brother and says sharply, "And you think we’ll be left to live out lives in peace if you're killed, my brother? We're the _demon's pawns_. That's what they've been whispering about us in neighboring castles. They'll kill us all."

"Very well," Albus changes tactics. "Then stay here, and I'll kill them."

"By yourself? After not feeding for nearly three weeks?" Ariana shakes her head, incredulous. "You won't be able to, it can't be done."

"Then get me someone to feed on," Albus groans. "And quickly, we don’t have time."

"You'll drain whoever I bring."

"I won’t," Albus shakes his head. "I'm capable of controlling myself."

"I don't believe y-" Ariana stops talking suddenly. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes, they're like Dumbledore's at his best moments: penetrating and clear, with a purpose and every intention of fulfilling it. Eyes that illicit undying loyalty. Her gaze seems to effect Dumbledore, as he freezes in place and watches Ariana move over to the table next to his bed and pick up a small silver knife laying on it.

"Drink from me," Ariana says with a clear voice, looking up to pin her brother in place with her eyes.

There's a moment of deathly silence and then Dumbledore says, calmly, "Have you lost your mind?"

"Drink from me," Ariana repeats. "Drink from me and save our home."

"No," The reality of what Ariana is suggesting seems to suddenly hit Albus, and he steps away from his sister. "No, no. I won’t. Bring someone else-"

"I won’t ask anyone else to die for my brother's mistakes," Ariana says sharply.

Albus closes his eyes, falling down to the floor, "Please don’t make me do this, Ariana."

"You have to do it," Ariana says sharply, holding her wrist out to him.

"No," Albus shakes his head. "I won’t. I won’t do it."

"Al, we don’t have a choice," Ariana says quietly, and Hermione has to choke back a sob at the sight of that dignity in Ariana's body, the way she holds herself as though she's a queen on the way to a ball, not a little girl on the way to an untimely death. "I'm going to die anyway."

"Don't say that," Dumbledore shakes his head, eyes wide with horror. "Please, Ariana. You're not going to die-"

"I will, one day," Ariana replies, voice calm and collected. "Someday soon."

"Not at fourteen, fourteen is too young," Dumbledore begs as Ariana comes up to lean down in front of her brother.

"Albus, my dear, sweet brother," Ariana kisses his forehead. "You're weak, and if you don’t drink from me you won’t have the strength you need to protect our home."

"I don’t want to drink from you."

"It's not your choice, it's mine, this is the death I choose. I want you to do it-"

"Please, Ariana," Dumbledore whimpers. But Ariana just smiles gently and places the knife to her wrist, keeping her eyes on Albus as she opens her vein.

The red blood starts spilling out on her white skin, and Ariana takes a deep breath and raises her arm to Albus, "I will die if you drink or if you do not, and if you do not, I will die for nothing. I don’t want to die for nothing, my dear Albus."

Hermione sees the moment when the smell reaches Albus. His nostrils flare up and from that moment on he doesn't seem to see Ariana as his sister. She's become food. He grabs her wrists and digs his fangs in, ignoring the small cry of pain issuing from Ariana's mouth. As he drinks and drinks, Ariana's eyes flatter close, and her body slumps down against Albus's back, and the weight of her body seems to jerk him out of his trance. Albus freezes suddenly, mouth attached to Ariana, and he pushes her away, eyes wide as Ariana tumbles to the floor.

"Oh, no," Albus Dumbledore mumbles, grabbing Ariana's body and pulling her close. "Oh, Gods, Ariana. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

 _Too late,_ Hermione thinks bitterly. _Far, far, too late. A few years too late._

***

Harry's not sure how long they sit there, in that bedroom with the sweet scent of Ariana's blood. Dumbledore doesn't cry almost at all, just sits and hugs his sister's body quietly. His eyes are dry and cold, and he doesn’t look down at Ariana. Instead his eyes are trained on the window, watching the army coming closer and closer. Eventually Albus stands up, Ariana in his hands, and exits the room. They follow silently as Dumbledore goes out into the courtyard.

The humans stand in silence in front of him, surrounding the castle, holding torches and pitchforks. There are a few humans on horses, and they move forward as Dumbledore appears. Of those five humans, four are dressed in expensive looking clothes, and the fifth is a monk. A very familiar looking monk.

Albus snorts at the sight and says calmly, "Didn't I spare your life, human? Is this how you repay me?"

The monk shifts in his seat on the horse and says, "I do not have the authority to forgive you for your atrocities. Only God can do so-"

"Spare me, please, my good man," Albus says dryly. He's still so calm, as though he's holding a package or bag of wheat, not the body of his dead sister. "I have no wish for your forgiveness. I have no need for it."

"Enough!" One of the other horse-bound humans snaps, taking a longsword out and brandishing it towards Dumbledore. "I will not stand here and talk to this demon-"

"I have no real interest in talking to you, either," Dumbledore replies, turning to look at the man, his gaze freezing him in place. "Though, there is something I must tell you before we begin: before the day is over, you will all be dead. Each and every one of you, and you will not die quickly. You will die slowly, and you will die painfully, and you will die wishing that your God had never seen fit to give you life in the first place. Your bodies will become a shrine to my dead sister. And if anyone of you has an interest in avoiding suffering such a death, I suggest that you leave now."

Harry's unsurprised to see some humans running away. _Smart move_ , he commends them as they disappear, before turning to look back to Dumbledore to watch him live up to his promises.

It doesn’t take long, and by the time the sun comes down all the humans are dead and dismembered, their faces mangled and their bodies missing some rather important parts. Dumbledore starts grabbing the bodies, throwing them one on top of the other, creating a grotesque hill of bodies. He goes over to Ariana's body and gently picks it up and starts climbing the mountain of bodies, placing her on the top, her back leaning on the sword he took from the first man to attack him. He caresses Ariana's blond hair behind her face tenderly and turns to look at his father's people coming out of the castle hesitantly.

"You saw everything?" He asks quietly.

An elderly man clears his throat and walks over, "We saw, m'Lord."

"I drank from Ariana," Dumbledore says in a monotone voice, and jumps off the hill without sparing Ariana another glance. "When my family returns, you will tell them everything."

The man swallows, "Must you leave, m'Lord?"

"No one will attack you again," Albus replies. "They'll be too scared, once they hear what happened here. No human will attack this place for generations."

"But…you will return, m'Lord?"

Albus laughs, and everyone freezes in fear, Harry and Hermione included. He shakes his head softly and walks away without another word.


	7. The Making of A Monster

_Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?_

_-Jacqueline Carey_

Destruction is easier then creation, pulling something down will always be easier then building it up again. This is a fact that is true for addictions as well, including, it seems, an addiction to hunting and killing humans. It is easier to destroy your mind then put it back together.

As Hermione and Harry watch, Albus Dumbledore makes his way from his mother's homeland to mainland Europe on a merchant ship, and during the trip he feeds and drains five crewmembers, leaving the rest to shiver in the dark in fear. Every time he kills another crew member, Dumbledore pushes the bodies away, lets out a sharp cruse and rubs his face, eyes glistening with fear and self-loathing. Hermione can see the moment where Dumbledore, after killing the fifth crew member, decides, _fuck it, this isn't working_. He pushes the body into the water and jumps after him, swimming the rest of the way to the mainland, which takes a few hours. When he gets there, Dumbledore finds a little abandoned shack by the water and huddles inside.

And then he takes out a knife and slashes his own wrists.

"What the _fuck_?" Harry yelps and Hermione closes her mouth in shock, watching the blood run out as Dumbledore lays down and closes his eyes. The smell of vampire blood overwhelms the entire area, and Hermione shivers at the scent. Dumbledore's eyes dart around behind his closed sockets and his skin becomes paler and paler.

"Albus!" The shack door flies open and Gellert Grindelwald runs in, eyes frantic and scared. He falls down next to Albus and stirps pieces of cloth from his shirt, tying it to Albus's wrists to stop the blood. He then bites into his own wrist and holds it up to Dumbledore's lips. Albus groans softly and drinks in, latching himself to Grindelwald's wrist. He slowly starts sitting up, leaning on Grindelwald's body, skin returning to a normal color. Grindelwald tenderly caresses his long hair back from his face and then slaps him on the back of the head, hard.

Albus turns to glare at Grindelwald, "What was that for?"

"You idiot," Grindelwald growls, holding onto Dumbledore tightly. "What were you trying to do, kill yourself?"

Dumbledore freezes slightly, "No, that wouldn't kill me."

"No, it wouldn’t," Grindelwald says softly. "But I'm not sure you remember that, in the state you're in."

"I've lost my sister, not my mind, Gellert," Albus snaps, shifting away slightly, but Grindelwald just moves along with him, and Dumbledore lets him. "I was just going to sleep for some time."

Grindelwald hesitates then places his head on Dumbledore's shoulder and says, "I don’t want you to go to sleep, my love."

Dumbledore snorts softly and then says, "I killed my sister. I left my family, I can't drink from humans without killing them. I'm tired. I don’t want to kill anymore humans."

Grindelwald frowns slightly, "That's why you want to go to sleep? Because you don't want to kill humans?"

"Go ahead, tell me how ridiculous that is," Dumbledore mumbles, detaching himself and standing up. "And what are you even going here, how did you find me?"

"I followed you from Ireland," Grindelwald replies without a hint of shame.

"Why?"

"I wanted to see you, of course."

"Well, you saw me," Dumbledore snaps sharply, "And I saw you. You can leave, now."

"I'm not leaving," Grindelwald snaps right back. "Not if you're going to put yourself to sleep."

"Gellert-"

"You're putting yourself to sleep because you don't want to kill anymore humans, correct?"

Dumbledore hesitates, then nods.

"Then we won’t," Grindelwald says, sharp and perfectly sure of himself. "We won't kill humans."

Dumbledore opens his mouth and then shakes his head, "You'd do that for me?" He sounds shocked and confused, but mostly touched and a little bit more alive then he's sounded since Ariana's death.

Grindelwald frowns at him, as if finding it hard to engage with the premise of the question, then nods and says, "Of course I will. I'd do anything for you, Al."

***

As he watches Dumbledore and Grindelwald hunt after leaving the tiny shack, Harry finally gets it. For the first time ever, he gets why Dumbledore can't let Grindelwald go, why Grindelwald can't let Dumbledore go, why they're trapped together in a vicious cycle of love and hate, symbiotic closeness to devastating estrangement. He gets it, gets that it's not enough to fall together into the darkness, not enough to be just the two of them against the world. Those things are powerful, but not enough. No, what really holds Dumbledore and Grindelwald together is this: the ability to pull one another out of the darkness as well, to pull away from the familiar and comfortable for the benefit of the other.

Grindelwald is the one to capture a human first- another monk, who babbles in a French-sounding language and cowers when Dumbledore approaches him and exposes his fangs. As Dumbledore feeds, Grindelwald narrows his eyes, watching carefully, and when the monk begins to shiver as too much blood is taken out, Grindelwald moves forward and punches Dumbledore hard in the stomach, causing him to automatically buckle backwards, his hold on the monk slacking. It’s all Grindelwald needs as he grabs the monks and pulls him away from Dumbledore, allowing him to collapse into the ground. The monk lets out a rather undignified _squeak_ (not that Harry blames him, he's quite sure he'd be shitting his pants in his position) and begins crawling away, standing up and running when he realizes that neither of his hunters are coming after him.

Dumbledore gasps shallowly, wiping his mouth, and shakes his head as if to clear it before collapsing against Grindelwald and mumbling, "Thank you."

Grindelwald doesn’t reply with words, simply pulls Dumbledore against him in a powerful hug and closes his eyes. The image is ridiculously tender and sweet, and is not even ruined by the blood covering both young men. There are vampires after all. Blood suits them.

***

When they materialize again, they're in a rather large office. The office is circular in shape with a huge oak desk in the middle. There's a cabinet made of glass full of vials with differently colored liquids, the walls are entirely covered in books, a pensieve sits on a stone stand in the middle and there's a low long table covered in potion ingredients. The rest of the floor is taken up by little nick-nacks and half broken wooden objects that don't appear to have any serviceable purpose. The whole area makes Hermione think of either a mad scientist or the office of an incredibly well-off hoarder.

She's not overly surprised when Harry whispers to her, "It's Dumbledore's office in Hogwarts."

As soon as he speaks, the door opens and Albus Dumbledore walks in, followed by Minerva McGonagall. Hermione can tell immediately, by the way they're dressed, that a very long time has passed. This is proven correct when Dumbledore accidently steps on a rolled-up piece of paper which unfolds, revealing a map of the world. And unlike on the map they saw in Kendra Dumbledore's office, on this one the Americas are present, though Australia still isn't. If she had to guess, Hermione would put them in the seventeenth century, maybe early eighteenth.  

"I'm sorry, Minerva, what were you saying?" Dumbledore asks after letting out a curse, and the language has changed as well, becoming much closer to the modern English Hermione speaks.

"I was saying," McGonagall picks up the piece of paper and places it on the low table, "That Mad-Eye has sent me a rather odd letter. He says there's a Catholic monastery near London that claim they have in their possession a devil-child, the Antichrist."

Dumbledore frowns and turns towards her, running a hand through his short hair. It's' the exact same style he has in the present, and Hermione wonders if he just hasn't changed his hair since the seventeenth/eighteenth century. It suits him, she doesn’t think the long hair would look half as good on his mature face, which she much prefers to the young Dumbledore, but she doubts that's the reason he changed his hair. Much more likely is that he finds it easier to deal with.

"A devil-child," Dumbledore mumbles as he slumps down on the chair behind his desk, closing his eyes. "How long have they had him?"

"Mad-Eye doesn’t know," McGonagall replies and comes to stand in front of Dumbledore. "It sounds like they have a vampire child, Albus. The way they describe him- he heals quickly, he consumes human blood, he grows weak in the sun-"

"Yes, it does sound like a vampire," Albus nods slowly, planting arms on the desk and entwining his fingers. "Does Mad-Eye know why, if they believe he is a devil, they haven't killed him?"

McGonagall shrugs, "Humans can be quite egotistical. They probably think they can _cure him_ , save his soul."

"By?" Dumbledore looks up with sharp eyes. "By doing what?"

"I would assume praying over him," McGonagall says hesitantly.

Dumbledore snorts, eyes flickering with that hatred again, "I would assume doing more then that. Have you ever seen the back of a Catholic monk, Minerva?"

"Can't say I have…"

"Their backs are full of wounds, all the time. That's because they flog themselves to atone for sins they commit, and they will often be wearing undershirts made of horse hair to irritate their skins throughout the day. If they hold in their possession someone they believe is the Antichrist, I can assure you that praying over him will be a small part of their agenda."

McGonagall nods, "I'll go there, then."

"No," Dumbledore shakes his head and stands up. "I'll go. I'll bring the child here."

***

Mad-Eye Moody is waiting for Dumbledore on top of a large tree overlooking the ugly grey-stoned monastery. Albus climbs up to sit down next to him on the tree and nods at him.

"Albus," Mad-Eye's face and body is clear of scars, he still has his full nose and his hair is chopped close to his head. It's incredibly odd to see him like this. He tilts his head at Dumbledore and adds, "I expected McGonagall."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Albus smiles softly, earning him a low growl from Mad-Eye. His smile disappears as he says, "What do we have here?"

"I've been watching for a few days," Mad-Eye says. "A few monks have come and left, but for the most part they stay inside. There are around twenty monks in here. There's a vampire child-"

"Yes, I can smell him," Dumbledore's eyes grow dark and his hands clench. Harry can understand his fury, he can smell it as well, all the pain in the air, the little child's dried spilled blood. "I'll go in."

"Right now?" Mad-Eye raises an eyebrow. "No plan…?"

"There's nothing to plan, Alastor, or do you not think I can take on twenty humans by myself?" Dumbledore raises an eyebrow and stands up, preparing to jump down, but he stops when Moody raises a hand.

"Plans are important, you should-"

"Exercise vigilance," Dumbledore smiles. "Always."

He moves forwards again, but Moody grabs his arm to stop him again.

"You should know," Moody says quietly. "I saw your brother a few months ago."

Albus freezes then takes a deep breath, "How is he?"

"He seemed fine," Alastor replies, eyes narrowing. "He's gone back to Ireland, has a goat farm."

"Good, that's good," Dumbledore mumbles.

Mad-Eye looks at him, "When was the last time you two spoke?"

"Not so long ago," Dumbledore replies, shaking his head.

"He said a hundred years."

"Relatively," Dumbledore corrects himself and then jumps down and looks up at Mad-Eye. "It's not so long, relatively. You're still young, Alastor. I'm going in- you'll stay out here, please."

He moves forwards towards the monastery, Harry and Hermione at his tail. He moves straight towards the small back door and kicks it open, sending it spiraling into the kitchen beyond. There's one monk in the room, peeling potatoes, and he jumps up in fear when Dumbledore stomps into the room. his eyes grow wide as Dumbledore stalks towards him, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him into the air.

The monk gasps, grabbing hold of Dumbledore's arm and trying to breathe as his face changes colors. Dumbledore watches him chocking for a moment before suddenly dropping him on the ground. The monk gasps in breath, clutching at his throat and trying to crawl away from Dumbledore, but he's grabbed by the ankle and pulled backwards.

"Take me to the leader of this place," Dumbledore says with deceptive calm. Anyone who cared to look would see that he's furious, it's clear in his body language.

"Go-God will-"

"Don’t threaten me," Dumbledore growls, twisting the man's ankle, causing him to scream out in pain. "I'm not afraid of your _god_. You should not trust on him to save you, now. Your life is solely in my hands now. So, you must ask yourself, do you trust your god enough to save you from me, or will you put your trust in me, when I tell you that if you do not tell me where the leader of this establishment is, I will end your life more painfully then you can even imagine?"

There's a moment of silence and then the monk swallows and says, "I will show you where the Father is."

"Smart choice," Dumbledore grabs the man and heaves him to his feet. He follows in silence as the man leads him through the monastery to a dark red door, which he points to.

"Father John's room," The monk mumbles.

"Thank you," Dumbledore replies before snapping the man's neck and stepping over him to burst open the door.

Father John is seated on a small uncomfortable looking bunk, his chest bare, holding a bloody whip in his hand. His back is slick with red blood and he's panting softly. He appears to be around mid-fifties, with white eyebrows and a bold head. He looks up when Dumbledore comes in, but doesn’t appear surprised at all.

"You must be the child's father," Father John says calmly.

Dumbledore closes the door behind him and leans on it, "You think I'm Lucifer?"

"Are you not?"

"No, I am not," Dumbledore replies. "But you are not the first human to make that mistake. I doubt you'll be the last."

The monk gives him a sharp look and puts his whip down, "Have you come for the devil-child?"

"I've come for the boy, yes."

Father John shakes his head softly, "You do not want to take him. There is something…wrong with him."

Dumbledore lets out a sharp, bitter laughter, and comes forward to grasp the monk's wrist and pull him to the floor, "Is that what you told yourself, to justify your actions? Is that how you managed to sleep at night, when his blood covered your body, when he cried out in pain and begged you to spare him? Did you whisper excuses to yourself, telling yourself that because he was capable of suffering your punishments, that the child deserved it?"

The monk shakes his head, cowering on the ground, hands raised up, "No! I did what I did to save the child's soul!"

"What makes you think that he doesn't have an untainted one as is?" Dumbledore sneers, and kicks the monk, only hard enough to scare him.

"The child consumed the blood of humans! He-"

"You claim to consume the blood of a human, as well," Dumbledore says coldly, eyes blazing. He puts a hand over his face and settles down on the bed. "Enough. I will not argue with you."

The monk swallows.

"Tell me how the child came to be under your… _care_ ," Dumbledore sneers the last word, causing the monk to wince.

Father John pushes himself up against the wall and says quickly, as though afraid that Dumbledore will kill him if he doesn’t talk fast enough, "Elven years ago, a young woman came to us. She was heavy with child, and begged for us to take her in. It was a winter night, hailing and storming…"

"So you very kindly took her in," Dumbledore says dryly. "And she gave birth."

"She…she died when the child came out. She told us…to name him Tomas Marvolo Riddle, for his father and her own."

That causes Dumbledore to stiffen, and he says, "Marvolo?"

"Y-yes."

Dumbledore closes his eyes softly before opening them again and saying, "Go on. The mother died. What did you do with the baby?"

"I moved to hold him, and…" The monk shakes his head, horror in his eyes. "He began drinking the blood his mother had spilled. I pulled him away, I thought nothing of it. But we soon realized he would not drink milk, or anything else. He was withering, growing weaker. And eventually I caught one of the monks feeding the child blood. Human blood. And the babe was lapping it up. He grew stronger immediately. That was when I realized that a demon had entered the child and God had placed him in my care to save him-"

That was what does it. Dumbledore lungs up, grabbing the monk's two legs and twisting them to the sides, breaking both of them. Harry winces at the scream that issues from the man of faith. Dumbledore just stands up and walks over to the broken door.

"I would kill you," He says calmly. "But I don’t think that your life is mine to take. Tell me where the child is."

"In…In the dungeons…" The monk wheezes. "Please, you do not understand, he is a monster, he is cruel, do not unleash him on the world-"

He stops talking when Dumbledore glares at him.

Harry is more than happy to leave the wheezing and pained cries as they descend into the bowls of the monastery. Dumbledore's hands are twitching as he pushes his way into the dungeons, the smell getting almost too strong to bear. But Harry can't hear the boy as they approach and that's because the child makes no sound, not a single one, as he sits on the ground with his eyes closed, sitting so still that if Harry had only his eyesight to rely on, he might very well think that he's looking at a sculpture. The boy is certainly beautiful enough to be a sculpture, with his angellike face, framed with dark hair, dressed in a robe that could be any color, it's impossible to tell, since it's covered entirely by dried and new blood. He's more beautiful than any other child Harry has ever seen, almost unnaturally beautiful, he's virtually perfect.

The child has no open wounds, but he's pale and weak looking, like he hasn't been fed enough for a very long time. He's smaller than an eleven-year-old should be, delicate like a flower. Dumbledore closes his eyes, hiding the anger and horror, and when he opens them again, there is nothing in them but calm control. He walks over to the cell and grabs two of the bars, wrenching them out of place and sending them to the ground.

The sound of the clattering bars causes the boy to finally open his eyes. They're dark brown and completely dead. It makes Harry's stomach twist. He's seen dead eyes before, they've just always been on…dead people. But this boy is alive, or at least he has a pulse. His eyes make a very good case for him being, in fact, dead. He looks at Dumbledore with no emotion and says, "You smell different."

"Yes, Tom," Albus says softly as he walks into the cell, sitting down in front of Riddle. The boy keeps watching him, following with his eyes.

"How come?" Tom asks.

"Because I'm like you," Dumbledore replies, and put up his hand, palm open, in front of Tom. "And I've come to take you away from here."

"To Hell?" Tom asks, eyes moving down to the palm.

"No," Albus shakes his head, his voice hitching slightly. " _This_ is Hell, Tom. And I've come to take you out."

The boy keeps staring at the open palm, and it occurs to Harry that he's waiting for Dumbledore to hit him. Dumbledore seems to realize the same thing, as he puts his hand down and stands up, keeping his distance from the boy, and says, "Will you come with me, Tom?"

"Do I have to?" Tom asks, looking up at Dumbledore with a flicker of defiance, the first emotion Harry's seen in his eyes. And even that is dull and barely there. More like the echo of emotion then emotion itself.

"No, it's your choice whether you come with me or not," Dumbledore replies, keeping his voice steady. "If you want, you can stay here. But you must have heard, that I broke Father John's legs?"

The boy nods slowly.

"You should know that I'm going back to him now. If you come with me, you can drain him. If you chose to stay, I'll drain him and bring his body down to you. Which do you choose?"

Tom tilts his head, as though considering his options, then hesitantly stands up. Dumbledore puts his palm up again, and Tom takes a deep breath and clasps it with his own. Dumbledore gives him a small smile before they step out of the cell.

***

Father John is still laying on the floor, whimpering softly when Dumbledore and the child come back into his room. His eyes grow wide when he sees Tom out of his cell and he tries to crawl away, but Tom comes forward, grabs his robe and pulls him forward, towards Dumbledore, who leans against the wall.

"C-child, please," Father John gasps. "You must know, everything I did, I did to save your immortal soul-"

"I could believe that," Tom says softly, almost purring into the monk's ear. The man shudders as Tom's fangs come out, and it must be Harry's imagination, but for a moment he could swear Riddle's eyes flickered red. "If I couldn't hear the quickening of your heart beat when you whipped the flesh off my back." His eyes are still dead to the world. Harry wouldn’t have blamed him if he was enjoying himself at the moment, but he doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself at all. He doesn’t seem to be feeling anything at all.

"You were whipped?" Dumbledore asks in a strangled voice, and Tom turns to look at him, and there's something in his eyes then, a surprise that Dumbledore cares.

"All the time," Tom replies, then looks at the whip on the floor and back to Dumbledore. "May I?"

"Oh no," Hermione mumbles, eyes wide. "Don't fucking let him do that."

"I'd probably want to do that too," Harry replies as Dumbledore hesitates.

"He's a child, he shouldn't be-" Hermione starts but quiets herself down when Dumbledore picks the whip up and motions the boy towards him and goes on his knees so he can be eye to eye with him.

"Because this man deserves to suffer, I will allow you to do this," Dumbledore says quietly. Father John whimpers and is promptly ignored. "But you should know that I will not usually allow you to treat humans like this, just as I would not allow anyone to treat you this way."

Tom nods, "I understand." He holds his hands out expectantly for the whip and when he gets it, he gives Dumbledore his first smile. A real smile, an innocent and sweet smile.

"I don't want to watch this," Hermione mumbles and buries her face in Harry's shoulder. He holds onto her as Tom Riddle whips his tormenter. Not that it does her much good. The sight is really not as bad as the sounds of the whip landing on soft flesh, cutting it open, the blood splashing on the walls, the screaming of the monk, or as bad as the scents, the blood, the piss the monk lets out.

"Why did he let him do this?" Hermione whimpers as Tom brings the whip down again, and this time there's no scream from the monk. Instead, he lets out a sharp breath and the smell changes from a living human to a dead one.

"Dunno," Harry mumbles back.

Tom drops the whip and turns to Dumbledore, who comes over and picks the boy up. Covered in the blood of the man he just killed, Tom Riddle freezes, then latches on to Dumbledore's shoulder and bursts into tears.

"He's dead, shh," Dumbledore says quietly and picks the boy up. Tom huddles onto his side and watches Dumbledore looking the body over.

"Do you pity him?" He asks, sniffling.

"There's nothing to pity, I don't pity the dead, I pity those who live without love," Dumbledore replies. "And you won't be living like that."

That causes Tom to burst into a fresh round of crying.

"Shh," Dumbledore hushes, hugging Tom. "It's over. We're leaving now."

 _It's not over,_ Harry thinks as the scene disappears. _Is that what you think, that letting him get his revenge would free him of this place?_

_That's not how it works._

***

"Do you remember Marvolo Gaunt?" Dumbledore asks as Grindelwald comes to sit in front of him in the office. Grindelwald is looking rather similar to how he looked last time they say him, maybe three or four years earlier and with slightly shorter hair.

Grindelwald frowns in thought, "He used to be rather rich, wasn't he?"

"Yes, quite rich," Dumbledore nods slowly. "His parents were both influential in the Ministry. They made most of the family money, and Marvolo spent most of it."

"Aha?"

"Marvolo has a daughter-had-had a daughter. Merope. Around twelve years ago I got a letter from Merope. She had gotten married to a human and her father had found out. She asked for my help, she was scared her father was going to kill her, or the man, or both. I went to Marvolo's house, but he told me Merope had run away with her human husband and that he didn’t know where she was. Oh, he did ask me to cut her heart out if I ever found her, but he wasn't going to make an effort to find her himself."

"Fascinating, Al," Grindelwald cards a hand through his hair. "But is there a point to this story?"

"Yes, there is, so just shut up and listen, for once," Albus snaps, causing Grindelwald to raise his hands in mock surrender and grin. Dumbledore gives him a dirty look because continuing. "I looked for Merope for a bit, but I couldn't find her and I gave up rather quickly. The parents of her husband didn't know where they had gone. All they knew was that Merope was pregnant when they disappeared, and she didn't want her father and brother to know. They were also rather displeased with the marriage and asked me to bring their son back if I found him, but they didn’t have any idea where the two had gone to. I thought there was nothing else I could do, so I left it."

"Seems reasonable," Grindelwald says, watching Dumbledore intently. "But you regret that decision now. Why? What happened?"

Dumbledore sighs deeply and leans backwards on his chair, staring at the ceiling, "I found the child, Gellert. Merope had given birth to him at a monastery, all alone, and died. And he was raised by humans. It was horrific-"

"Yes, I can imagine," Grindelwald interrupts, eyes cold, and he gets up from his chair, moving over to Dumbledore. "And you blame yourself, don't you?"

Dumbledore nods hesitantly.

"You idiot," Grindelwald shakes his head, voice kind and loving, caressing Dumbledore's hair softly. "You can't save everyone, you know. There was nothing more you could do."

"I could have kept on looking for Merope. I could have saved that child from eleven years of hell."

"Al, you had no way of knowing-"

"I know, I know," Dumbledore pushes Grindelwald's hand away, shaking his head. "I know."

There's a moment of silence and then Grindelwald asks, "Where is the child, now?"

"Here, at Hogwarts," Albus replies. "I put him in the infirmary for now. He's making a remarkable recovery, but he's finding it hard to adjust to all these people around him. He's…he's smart, Gellert. Incredibly smart. I think he could be something incredible if I raise him right."

"Hmm," Grindelwald hums softly. "What about his human father? Do you know what happened to him?"

"No," Dumbledore shrugs. "I'll need to check on that. If he has a living parent somewhere…"

"A human living parent?" Grindelwald snorts. "I doubt he'd want to meet him."

"His grandfather and uncle won't want to meet Tom," Dumbledore says. "In fact, they might very well want him dead for training their family tree. So, what family does he have?"

"That's not your concern."

"He's my student, that makes him my concern."

"His _schooling_ is your concern," Grindelwald points out, but Dumbledore shakes his head.

"His life is."

***

Tom Riddle is seated on the floor in front of Dumbledore's office when the teacher approaches. He blinks at the child for a moment before coming over to him and saying, "Is there anything you need, Tom?"

The child looks up and shrugs. He looks completely different. He's dressed in a Hogwarts black robe and his hair has been trimmed, but the real change is in his eyes. They're alight with an inner fire now. It's a rather unsettlingly _intense_ fire, but Hermione has to admit it's less unsettling then the nothingness that was in his eyes before.

"I didn't want to stay in the dorms," Tom says sternly.

Albus frowns and sits down next to Tom, "Why?"

Tom shrugs, "They're stupid, the other students."

"Are they?"

"And the teachers, as well," Tom adds, moving closer to Dumbledore.

That gets a grin out of Dumbledore, "They're all stupid, then, everyone but you and me?"

"Yes, exactly."

Dumbledore laughs, ruffling Tom's hair and standing up. Tom beams at his attention and jumps up after him, attaching himself to his arm like it's a piece of wood and he's in the middle of the ocean.

"Come on, Tom, lets get you into bed," Dumbledore says fondly.

"Can’t I stay with you?" Tom asks.

Dumbledore shakes his head, "You need to sleep with your classmates."

"Please," Tom digs his feet into the floor, trying to stay in place. "I don’t like it there."

"Tom-"

"Just for a bit," Tom's eyes widen and his lower lip wavers slightly, and it's just a little too adorable and perfect to be believable to Hermione.

But Dumbledore seems to fall for it right away, as he sighs and places a hand on Tom's head, moving back towards his office, and says, "You can sit in my office, but I need to work, so you need to keep quiet. And just for a little bit, Tom. Then you'll go back to the dorms. Promise?"

"Promise," Tom replies, and Dumbledore doesn’t see the self-satisfied smile he hides behind Dumbledore's back.

***

"What is this room?" Tom asks, eyes blinking, hands latched on to Dumbledore's arm, as they enter a small room with an easel, bed and cabinet full of books. It's cozy looking, though not very large, carpets on the floor and paintings on the wall creating a comfortable, homey atmosphere.

"This is going to be your room," Dumbledore replies, settling down on the bed and detaching himself from Riddle. "Whenever you need it, you can come here and be alone."

Tom shifts on his feet, looking around, "My own room?" His voice is full of wonder and surprise.

"Yes, it's just for you," Dumbledore says softly. "You can sleep here if you want, or spend some time reading if that's what you need. Whatever you requite."

"Oh, its a room of requirement," Tom nods, looking around.

Albus laughs at that, "Yes, it's your Room of Requirement."

"It's just for me?" He sounds so disbelieving, as if he has to ask again to make sure Dumbledore isn't jerking him around.

"Just for you," Dumbledore assures him.

Tom smiles sweetly, suddenly looking like the innocent little child he has every right to expect to be, "And for you. This is our place."

***

Dumbledore smiles as McGonagall walks into his office, but she doesn’t smile back. Her face is grim as she walks over to Dumbledore and sits down in front of him.

"We may have an issue," She says without preamble. "I found Bertha Jenkins hanging form her neck on one of the towers."

Dumbledore's eyes widen, "What?"

"She won't tell me what happened," McGonagall continues. "Who put her there. None of the other children will, either."

"I'll go talk to her," Dumbledore replies, standing up, but McGonagall holds a hand out to stop him.

"You must know who it was, Albus," She says quietly.

Dumbledore shakes his head, "We don’t know it was him."

"Albus, he was angry with Bertha earlier today. And the other children are afraid of him, I can see it in the way they look at him, you must see it as well. Even the older children are afraid of him."

"He's making friends-"

"He's not making friends, he's making sycophants," McGonagall insists. "He's making obsessed followers."

"Minerva, he's only elven," Dumbledore raises a hand. "You make him sound like a monster."

"I don't think he's a monster," McGonagall replies, shaking her head. "But I do think he's proving to be a problem. Perhaps we should consider that he's not fit for Hogwarts yet-"

Dumbledore's eyes grow cold, "And where would he go, hmm? I suppose we should return him to the monastery?"

"That's not what I meant-"

"I'll go talk to Bertha," Dumbledore says tiredly. "I'll find out what happened to her. But we're not throwing Tom away. I will not prove to that boy what he already believes, that everyone will always abandon and hurt him."

***

Bertha Jenkins is a little scared girl who hugs herself on the far too large chair she's sitting on. She looks up at Dumbledore who's seated in front of her, chewing her lower lip.

"Bertha, I heard what happened to you," Dumbledore says tenderly, eyes soft as he examines the child. "Will you tell me who did this to you?"

Bertha shakes her head.

"Why not?"

"Nothing happened to me, I got up there by accident," The girl says too quickly.

"You accidently hung yourself from a tower?"

"Yes," Bertha says, blushing deeply, clearly aware of how ridiculous her excuse sounds.

"Bertha…" Dumbledore sighs.

The girl shakes her head, "Please, Professor, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"We barely talked at all, Bertha."

"Well, I don’t want to talk anymore," Bertha's eyes began to fill up with tears. " _Please_."

"Bertha-"

"No, please, please don’t make me talk about it, sir, please," Bertha jumps up and shakes her head, her face red with tears and shivering from fear. "Please, please, please."

"Sweetheart," Dumbledore sighs deeply and puts his hands up. "No one is mad at you, you won't get in trouble. You just need to tell the truth."

 _God, leave her alone_ , Hermione thinks in horror. _She's scared out of her mind_.

"No! No, no, no, _no_ ," Bertha backs onto the wall and collapses onto the ground, hugging into herself. Her body is wrecked by sobs, her hands twitching.

Dumbledore shakes his head and moves over to Bertha and places a soft hand on her shoulder, "Shh, Bertha, it's all right, I won't ask you anything anymore right now. Shh…"

Bertha sobs, and allows Dumbledore to move her up to her feet and hug her. She collapses against his shoulder, crying.

"Please…" She whimpers. "I don’t want to talk. Please."

"I won’t," Dumbledore promises. "I won't, Bertha."

***

"Sit down, Tom," Albus says calmly, pointing Riddle to the chair in front of him.

"What is it, Professor?" Riddle asks smoothly as he sits down, eyes wide with faux innocence. It makes bile raise in Harry's mouth.

Dumbledore narrows his lips and leans forward on his chair, "Tell me about Bertha."

Tom Riddle watches Dumbledore for a moment, and Harry can see the moment that he realizes that Dumbledore knows what he did, and he slumps backwards on the chair, "She caught me stealing."

Dumbledore closes his eyes, "Why did you hang her, Tom?"

Tom huddles into himself and says, "Because. Because you would have made me leave, wouldn’t you have? If I was caught stealing?"

"No, I wouldn’t have," Dumbledore says coldly. "Is that what you thought?"

 _He's lying, you fucking idiot,_ Harry thinks, having to stop himself from smacking his forehead into his hand.

"Yes," And then Harry's not so sure that he is lying, with the way he looks around as if embarrassed to face Dumbledore. It looks incredibly real.

Dumbledore doesn’t melt, but he does grow slightly less cold and says, "We won’t."

Tom's eyes grow hard, "I don't believe you."

And ok, _now_ he's telling the truth for sure. His body grows rigid and closed and his eyes light up with hatred and anger.

"You don’t have to believe it, Tom, it’s just the truth," Dumbledore replies sharply. "But if you ever hurt one of your fellow students again, you will be kicked out of Hogwarts. I can't allow any of my students to be in danger. Clear, Tom?"

"Clear," Riddle replies, and he smiles.

 _Great,_ Harry thinks with a roll of his eye. _Now he'll just be subtler about it._

***

"Who are you?"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle. Who are you?"

"Ah, you're the orphan boy," Grindelwald's voice says with interest as Dumbledore, who's laying in a bed in a stone room, opens his eyes and jumps up.

"Who are you?" Tom's voice is cold and sharp. Dumbledore hurries to open the door of the room he's in.  

"Now, why should I tell you that, little boy?" Grindelwald's voice is amused but also slightly concerned.

Dumbledore leaves the bedroom, entering the small front room of a cabinet where Tom Riddle is standing in front of the open front door, where Grindelwald is looming over him, glaring down at the child. Oddly, despite the fact that they're a child and adult, they look like two equals, like two lions preparing to fight over the last bit of meat.

"Gellert," Dumbledore comes over, placing a hand on Tom's shoulder, pulling him away from Grindelwald. The boy smiles smugly up at the blond man, leaning against Dumbledore. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," Grindelwald replies, eyes narrowing. "What is the child doing here?"

"I'm spending the summer vacation with Professor Dumbledore," Tom grins wickedly, and Hermione can see Grindelwald's fingers twitching, as if he has to hold himself back from attacking the child.

"Are you?" Grindelwald sneers and looks up at Dumbledore. "Since when do you take students to one of your homes?"

Dumbledore frowns at Grindelwald, puzzled, "Tom doesn’t have a family to return to in the summer."

Grindelwald nods slowly, then says, "Can I talk to you? Without the child listening in?"

"Of course," Dumbledore nods, looking down at Tom and saying, "Stay here, Tom."

"Yes, Professor."

Dumbledore claps the boy on the back before turning back to Grindelwald and motioning him to follow out of the hut.

"What is it?" Dumbledore asks as soon as they're far enough from the cabin.

Grindelwald leans against a tree and clicks his tongue, "I don't like you being out here alone with that boy."

"What? Why?" Dumbledore frowns. "He needed somewhere to be-"

"There's something off about that boy," Grindelwald interrupts.

"Off," Dumbledore says coldly.

"I heard what he did to Bertha Jenkins," Grindelwald says, sounding almost desperate. "I don’t want you around him alone."

"All right, stop, stop," Dumbledore raises a hand. "First of all, I do not like you keeping tabs of what is happening in Hogwarts-"

"You keep tabs on what my army is doing, don't you, love?"

"I work at a _school_ , Gellert, not leading an army," Dumbledore snaps back. "Second of all, that happened at the beginning of the year and it was dealt with. He's grown up a lot since then-"

"I'm sure…"

"Gellert, I swear to the Gods if you interrupt me again, I will tear your tongue out of your mouth," Dumbledore says, voice so neutral that it's really impossible to know if he's being serious or not. His words get a predatory grin out of Grindelwald, but the other vampire does keep his mouth closed as Dumbledore continues.

"And thirdly, you _don't want me around him alone_? You don't get to decide who I spend my time around, and what do you think he'll do? He's a twelve-year-old child."

"When I was twelve-"

"Yes, I'm sure you were a rather murderous child," Dumbledore shakes his head, but in a rather fond way. "Listen, can't you just trust me? Tom's…complicated, but he's getting better."

"That boy is obsessed with you."

"He is not, where do you _get_ these ideas?"

"I saw the way he followed you with his eyes, and I saw how jealous he was when I showed up, he thought he was the only one here with you."

Realization makes Dumbledore's eyes widen and he sighs, moving into Grindelwald's space, "I see now. You're jealous that I brought him here."

"I am not, this isn’t about me," Grindelwald protests.

"Isn't it?" Dumbledore's eyebrow goes up.

"It isn't," Grindelwald insists, and Dumbledore lets out a snort.

"If it makes you feel any better, he's the first student I ever brought here, and that's only because I had to."

"That doesn’t actually make me feel better," Grindelwald growls lowly.

Dumbledore sighs, rolling his eyes, and steps away, "I don't know what else to tell you, Gellert."

"How about, you'll send him away?"

"Send him away to where? Until the new school year starts, Tom has no where to go. So, he stays here. And you, get a grip and stop being jealous of a _child_ , for Gods' sake," Dumbledore shakes his head. "You sound even more immature then usual."

And with that, Dumbledore turns and walks back to the hut, where Riddle is waiting. He's standing in the middle of the hut and rushes forward towards Dumbledore comes in, attaching himself tightly to Dumbledore's legs, fear in his eyes as though he were afraid that Dumbledore wouldn't return. It's impossible not to feel bad for the poor child, even when Hermione knows full well what this little child is capable of, what he's become. His fear is real, his relief real as well.

Dumbledore frowns down at the child and says, gently, "What is it? I was only gone for a few minutes."

"I didn't like him," Tom says in response, which doesn’t really address the abandonment issues point Dumbledore was trying to make.

"You don't know him," Dumbledore replies with a small smile, detaching himself from Tom and sitting down on the couch. The child comes over and sits besides him curling his legs up against his chest.

"But I still don’t like him," Tom says stubbornly.

Dumbledore grins and ruffles the boy's hair, "You're a suspicious one, aren’t you?"

"A bit," Tom replies, eyes never leaving Dumbledore.

***

"What do you mean Tom's missing?" Dumbledore's eyes are slightly wide as he stands next to McGonagall in one of the large halls of Hogwarts. "He's a thirteen-year-old boy, how could he disappear from the school without any of us noticing?"

"Well, he's not on Hogwarts grounds," McGonagall replies dryly. "So he must have found a way."

"How could he go _missing_?" Dumbledore rubs his face and then motions one of the children walking around over to him. "Bella, come over here."

The black haired and rather beautiful girl jumps over with a suspicious look in her eyes, "Yes, Professor?"

"You're closed to Tom Riddle, aren't you? Do you know where he is?"

Bellatrix shakes her head.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Professor," She says defiantly.

"Hmm," Dumbledore leans backwards on the wall, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not lying, Professor," Bellatrix says, almost disrespectful but not quite.

Albus leans down next to the small girl and motions her over to him, and she comes over to stand in front of him, hands clasped together behind her back like a soldier.

"Bellatrix, I know that Tom is a very impressive young man, but he's still a child and the world out there can be very dangerous," Dumbledore says gently.

"Riddle will be fine," Bellatrix replies, but there's a hesitance in her voice.

"Riddle?" Dumbledore frowns slightly. "Is what his friends call him?"

"He doesn’t like to be called Tom," Bellatrix informs Dumbledore. "You see, there are so many people named Tomas."

"I see," Dumbledore narrows his eyes slightly and then shakes his head. "We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we need to find Tom. Bella, if you care about him, then you need to let me help him. _Do_ you care about him?"

Bellatrix swallows and nods, "Yeah."

"Then tell me where Tom is, please."

She hesitates slightly and then nods and says, "He's been looking for his family, in the library. He found his grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt. He said he was going to find him."

"Oh, fuck me," Dumbledore snaps.

***

It’s like the first time Dumbledore saw Tom. Once again the child is in a room full of blood, body covered in it, making no noise at all. But this time his eyes are wide open and full of hatred, When Dumbledore comes in, he follows him with his eyes, biting his lower lip. The parts of the cabinet that aren't full of blood are covered in dust, and the whole place is full of broken furniture. Mummified snakes hang from the walls and ceilings, and there's a body lying on the floor- or rather, a heap of bloody body parts are lying scattered around the floor.

Tom is holding something green in his fingers, twirling it around. It takes Harry a moment to realize that it's a large ring with a green stone in the middle of it. Dumbledore's eyes go straight to the fancy ring

"Tom," Dumbledore walks into the room, eyes narrowed and body tense. "That's your family's ring. Who is that, the body on the floor?"

"My uncle," Tom says, voice cold and furious. "He tried to kill me."

"And you killed him?"

Tom's eyes flicker down to the body, "He said I was a blot on the family tree that he needed to eradicate. He said that my grandfather was already dead and he wouldn't be able to rest in peace if I was still alive."

Dumbledore tenses even further, "Yes. That sounds like him."

"It's because of my father, isn't it?" Tom snaps sharply. "That's why my uncle hates me. Because my father was a human. Is…is a human." Tom's eyes narrow as he looks down at the bloody parts, "He's still alive, my father."

"I don’t know if that’s true, Tom."

"No, I do," Tom replies. "I could smell him. He's down there, in the village. Back with his parents."

He takes a deep breath, and Harry is startled to see that there are tears in the boy's eyes.

"He's living in a large manor house with five servants," Tom say bitterly.

"I'm sorry, Tom," Dumbledore comes over to the boy and Tom collapses into his arm. He's too big now to be picked up and held, so Dumbledore just folds himself around Tom's body, holding him as he bursts into tears. But as Tom Riddle cries, Dumbledore's eyes roam over the hut, taking in the destruction Tom Riddle wrought, and Harry is almost sure he knows what the professor is thinking: _even if Tom had to protect himself against his uncle, he didn’t have to do it so brutally. That was a choice._

"I want to go back to the Room of Requirement," Tom hiccups against Dumbledore.

"Not yet," Dumbledore mumbles. "First, we need to go see your father."

***

Dumbledore and Riddle are laying on their stomachs above a hill, looking down to a manor house underneath. The manor house is situated above a small town, loaming over it.  In front of the manor house, two maids are washing clothes in a bucket and an elderly man is walking around, leaning on a metal cane, dressed in a long overcoat decorated with jewels.  He's observing the girls with a leering look. Hermione notices how the girl tense and lean closer to each other when the man walks by them, but don't make a move to push him away when he rests a hand on their backs, delicate and fleeting, fingers trailing their way up front to lightly cup their breasts.

"My grandfather," Tom says with disgust, and Hermione can understand, if this is the kind of people his whole human family is, why he grew to hate that part of his identity.

Dumbledore seems to be thinking the same thing, as he says gently, "It doesn’t mean your father is the same."

"He abandoned my mother, and he abandoned me," Tom states the obvious very much in the tone of someone who's confused as to why he needs to be stating the obvious.

"We don't know what happened, yet."

Riddle gives Dumbledore a disbelieving look, then jerks his head back to the manor and says, quietly, "There he is."

Another man exits the manor house. He appears to be in his early thirties, and resembles the boy to an almost uncanny degree. He smells similar to him, as well, and even moves the same way, with his back straight and movements full of controlled power and energy, possessing a reserved kind of dignity that draws the eye. He's dressed in expensive looking clothes, but with less decorations then his father's.

Tom Riddle Sr. goes straight over to his father and cuffs him on the ear, and as the old pervert sneers up at him, he snaps, "I told you to leave the maids alone, didn't I? If you want a cunt to fuck into, go to the brothel."

"How dare you speak to me like that, you-you," The elderly man shakes his head, puffing his chest forward. "I am your father and the lord of this manor!"

"Not for much longer," Riddle replies, moving over to the maids. "You won't be alive much longer, old man." He leans down next to the girls, movements gentle and slow, as if he's afraid to scare them. "And then I will be lord of the manor."

"You will not," The old man shakes his head. "I will not allow it; do you hear me? I will not allow the home my father built to be taken over by a man who brought disgrace on our house, who wedded a filthy peasant and left his family!"

Besides Dumbledore, Tom freezes, and his father does as well. He takes a deep breath and pushes himself up, stomping over to his father, who takes a step back.

"I did not shame our family," Riddle sneers, grabbing his father by his coat and yanking him closer. "I left that bitch, I returned home, I did _nothing_ to shame us."

"You put a child in her-"

"I did what I had to do," Riddle snaps, pushing his father away. "I killed that child inside of her, I left her bleeding on the ground. She is long since dead."

Tom gasps, and turns away from the scene, towards Dumbledore, eyes red with hidden tears, "He hurt my mother."

Dumbledore swallows.

"Do-do you think that's why she died? Was she weak, because he hurt her? Did she lose too much blood because of him, and didn't have the strength to fight?"

"I don’t know, Tom, maybe," Dumbledore says gently, eyes following the older Riddle as he scoffs at his son and storms back into the manor. "It would certainly explain why she didn’t survive your birth."

"So, it was his fault she died," Tom says in a small voice. "Not mine, at all."

"No, of course it wasn't your fault, Tom-"

Tom shakes his head, looking away from Dumbledore.

Tom Riddle Sr. walks back towards the maids and says, gently, "I apologize for my father's behaviour. You will receive double portions at dinner tonight."

"I don’t understand," Tom's voice is small and hollow. "If he's so cruel, why does he care about those maids?"

Dumbledore hesitates, then clears his throat and says, "Sometimes, Tom, people find it easier to be kind of strangers then to those that are closest to them."

The boy shakes his head and says with conviction, "I won't be like that."

"You won't be cruel?" Dumbledore asks as Tom's father walks back into the manor, leaving the maids to their work.

"I won't be a hypocrite," Tom's eyes flash with fury. "I want him to suffer, Professor."

"You will not kill him, Tom," Dumbledore says sharply. "You are far too young for the amount of blood you already have on your hands. One killing is enough."

"I didn’t say I wanted him dead," Tom growls back. "I said I wanted him to suffer. And he deserves to suffer. I want to hurt him."

"Tom-"

"Turn him," Tom says suddenly, eyes widening with idea, turning to face Dumbledore fully. "Turn into one of us."

Dumbledore frowns, "Why?"

"Because, all he cares about is getting his father's manor when he dies, all he cares about is being the _perfect human_. And he can't be any of those things if we turn him. And he'll be trapped forever," Tom's smiling softly, and once again Hermione is caught in the odd position of understanding Tom Riddle perfectly. She can imagine being in the same position, able to exact any kind of revenge against her own father, and knows that she would probably do it without thinking twice about it. In fact, if she ever heard her father call her mother a bitch, she'd probably just tear his heart out right there and then. The fact that Tom isn't jumping up and doing the same shows an impressive amount of control.

Dumbledore sighs and sits up, rubbing his face, "Revenge won't make you feel any better, Tom."

"It's not revenge," Tom replies, though of course it really is, "It's justice." And, yes, it's that as well.

Tom hesitates and then he adds, "But it probably will make me feel better, though."

"It really won't, Tom," But something in the way Dumbledore sighs and stands up makes Hermione realize that he's still going to be doing it.

***

"I've hears some interesting things about the Riddle boy during the last four years," Grindelwald says lowly as he sits down on the desk, planting his feet firmly on the handles of the chair Dumbledore is sitting on.

"Do I want to ask," Dumbledore asks with a sigh, leaning backwards on the chair and putting a hand on Grindelwald's calf, caressing softly.

Grindelwald tilts his head and his voice is heavy with disapproval when he says, "Is it true he's been spending every summer with you?"

"I thought we talked about this. He had nowhere else to go."

"Nowhere? None of his _friends_ invited him to spend the summer with them?" Grindelwald raises an eyebrow.

Dumbledore frowns and says, "I'm not sure their parents would agree-"

"Al," Grindelwald sighs, " _Really_."

"All right, fine," Dumbledore growls, taking his hand away from Grindelwald. "So Tom would rather spend his summers with me, what's so surprising about that? I'm the closest thing he has to a parent."

"He's not your son, my love."

"I know that."

"Do you?" Grindelwald asks. "Because it seems to me that you're much more invested in his well being then you are with your other students."

"I-" Dumbledore shakes his head. "Yes, I probably am. But can you blame me?"

"Yes, I can blame you easily," Grindelwald snaps at him. "Is this about you feeling guilty? Because if I have to beat this into you, I will: _it was not your fault_. You are _not_ responsible for what happened to that boy _or_ his mother."

"You can keep saying that. It won’t become true," Dumbledore's voice is rigid and controlled, trying to hide the anger that still manages to spill out. "And just like so many things you forcibly push yourself into, my conscience is none of your business. What I choose to view as my fault or responsibility is none of your concern."

"Everything that impacts your well being is my concern," Grindelwald snaps back. "That's why I stopped killing humans for nearly a hundred years, remember?"

"Yes, and then you went back to killing them with renewed enthusiasm," Dumbledore lets out a bitter laughter. "In fact, I think the break might have made you enjoy it even more."

Grindelwald frowns at him, "You didn’t need me to stop you from killing anymore. There was no reason-"

"Maybe, Grindelwald, there were other reasons I didn't want you to kill humans. Maybe I thought it made you better, maybe I thought it made us better, together," Dumbledore says bitterly, then shakes his head. "I'm not having this discussion with you now. I have a class to get to."

He pushes one of Grindelwald's legs off the chair and stands up. Grindelwald, who'd grown rigid when Dumbledore used his surname, seems to shake himself off and says, "Where will you go, this summer?"

Dumbledore hesitates and then says, "Probably my place in Ireland."

"I'll come. To see you…and the boy."

Again, Dumbledore hesitates, then says, his voice rough, "You're always welcome, Gellert."

And then he walks away.

***

Dumbledore is walking in a forest, slowly, his body relaxed like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It's a rather nice sight, and makes Harry instinctively relax along with the professor, listening to the cries of birds as he strolls after Dumbledore.

The fact that the scene is so pleasant makes Harry slightly nervous- all the other memories so far have been various degrees of unpleasant. So, something has to happen, something bad.

Harry hopes whatever happens won't hurt the birds. They're sweet sounding and really, can't one thing stay untouched by the Shakespearean tragedy unfolding before them?

Just as the thought crosses his mind, Harry catches a whiff of the smell of blood in the air. It's so distant that other then the fact that it is blood, and vampire blood, he can't make out anything about it, but Dumbledore, with his clearly superior sense of smell, lets out a sharp gasp as his eyes widen and he begins to run.

Harry and Hermione rush to keep up as Dumbledore tears through the trees (accidently breaking a branch which brings down a bird's nest, so that's a few birds hurt) making his way through the forest. The smell gets stronger as they go on, and Harry recognizes the spilled blood of Grindelwald and Tom Riddle.

Dumbledore bursts out of the forest, into a small meadow and makes a bee line straight towards one of the few huts decorating the landscape. He breaks down the door-

To reveal Gellert Grindelwald looming over the unconscious body of Tom Riddle, both bloody and beat up, and Grindelwald freezes, hand hovering over Tom's chest, claws out, clearly about to tear his heart out.

Harry doesn’t have time to take anything else in as Dumbledore launches himself at Grindelwald, pushing him away from Tom and pounding him into the floor, causing the whole hut to shake.

Dumbledore's face is stiff with rage as his hands go around Grindelwald's neck and he squeezes.

"Have you lost your fucking _mind_?" Albus yells. "What the _fuck_ -"

Grindelwald's feet hook around Dumbledore's and suddenly their positions are reversed, and Dumbledore is pushed on the ground while Grindelwald pounds into him and growls, "He attacked me."

Dumbledore freezes and then knees Grindelwald in the stomach, pushing himself up and rushing over to Tom's body. Grindelwald collapses onto the ground, watching with narrowed eyes as Dumbledore places Tom's head on his knees. Harry takes the moment of silence to look Tom over. He's around fifteen now, or maybe a bit older, and just as beautiful and delicate as he'd been as a young boy. And disturbingly, being covered in blood makes him look, somehow, even more beautiful, like a creature that has finally been put in his own element.

Dumbledore bites into his own wrist and puts it up in front of Tom, but before the blood can drop onto Tom's lips, Grindelwald pushes forward, grabbing Albus's wrist and pushing it away from the teen.

"Just listen to me, Al," Grindelwald growls. "Wait."

"Why should I do that?" Dumbledore says softly, eyes full of horror and absolute betrayal. "You attacked a _child_ , you nearly killed him!"

"I told you, _he_ attacked _me_ , and he is not a child," Grindelwald snaps. "He is a monster, do you hear me?"

"Stop, stop-" Dumbledore shakes his head, hands curling around Tom's body. "He is not a monster, don’t say that. You have no idea what he's been through."

"Al-"

"Why would he attack you? He has nothing to gain from that," Dumbledore says in a small voice, sounding almost like a child.

"Nothing to gain, is that what you think? I'll tell you why he attacked me, my lovely," Grindelwald snaps sharply. "He attacked me as soon as he saw me, because he hates me. And he hates me because you _love_ me."

There's a moment of silence and then Dumbledore says, quiet and soft, "How insecure do you have to be to think that you're in some kind of competition with a child? How insane can you be?"

"I-"

"No, stop," Dumbledore stands up, picking Tom up and holding him in his arms. "You're leaving. Right now."

Grindelwald bites his lower lip and then says, "I'm not leaving."

"You are," Dumbledore says, voice cold. "On your own, or I'll force you. And we both know I'm capable of doing that."

Grindelwald freezes, then takes a step forward towards Dumbledore. Immediately, instinctively, Dumbledore moves backwards, tightening his hold on the body protectively. Something like hurt flickers in Grindelwald's eyes and then he closes his eyes and says, "I don’t want to leave you."

"You're leaving. Now," There is no wavering in Dumbledore's voice, and Grindelwald can clearly tell that Dumbledore isn't going to change his mind.

Grindelwald looks at Dumbledore for a moment and then says, "This isn't over, my Albus. You'll regret keeping this boy around you, you'll see."

He shakes his head, turns around and walks away.

Immediately, Dumbledore puts Tom down on the floor and bites into his wrist again, letting the blood drip into Tom's open mouth. After a few moments, the young man stirs and shivers, eyes flickering open.

"Professor…" He whispers, face breaking into a sweet smile.

"Tom," Dumbledore sighs and slumps backwards against the wall. "Thank the Gods."

"What happened?" Tom frowns, looking around, head still on Dumbledore's lap. He doesn’t seem in any hurry to move away. "Where is Grindelwald?"

"He left," Dumbledore rubs Tom's head, protectively. "He's gone."

"Oh," Tom looks over at Dumbledore. "Good. He's not coming back, is he?"

"I don’t think so," Dumbledore replies.

"I made him leave," Tom's smile turns predatory. "Good."

Dumbledore blinks at him for a moment and then says, hesitantly, "Tom, what happened?"

Riddle shrugs, "He showed up, looking for you."

"And…"

"And?"

"And did you attack him, or did he attack you?"

Tom flashes his teeth and says, "No one attacks _me_. I attacked him."

"Why?" Dumbledore asks quietly.

"I told you," Tom frowns at him. "He came looking for you."

"I…" Dumbledore opens his mouth and then closes them again, face completely stunned. "Tom, he's allowed to come see me."

"No, he's not," Tom snuggles closer to Dumbledore. "He can't have you. You're mine."

Dumbledore gaps down at him, but doesn’t move.

***

Dumbledore is yawning as he returns to his office. Then he stops, eyes widening when he sees a little girl, probably a first year, sitting in front of the door, eyes red from tears and body shaking.

"Myrtle," Dumbledore comes up to the child, his voice worried. "What's wrong?"

"S-s-sorry, Professor," The girl hiccups.

"Don't be, Myrtle, it's all right," Dumbledore says gently, sitting down next to the girl. "What happened?"

"I-well, it was just Olive Hornby, she was making fun of my glasses, and I went to the bathroom to cry, but she followed me there and," She wipes her nose. "I didn’t know where else to go, so…"

"It's all right," Dumbledore says softly, putting a hand around Myrtle. "I know it can be difficult, to get used to Hogwarts. But you know, not all the students are like Olive. I'm sure you'll make friends in no time. But don't worry, I'll talk to her."

"You will?" Myrtle looks up, hopeful.

"I will, I won't let you be bullied, I promise," Dumbledore says sternly.

"Thank you, Professor," Myrtle sniffs and smiles shyly, then latches onto Dumbledore, hugging him. Dumbledore rubs her head, and then frowns and looks up.

Tom Riddle stands at the edge of the hallway, watching Dumbledore comforting another student. His eyes are narrow, and the book that he's holding in his hand is ripped into a million pieces where he clutched it to hard. His gaze stays on the child, full of murderous hatred. Dumbledore opens his mouth as if to say something, but there's a shock in his eyes that makes him stay silent. Tom gives the child another look, then he turns and walks away.

***

"You were right," Dumbledore says dryly, face buried into a sofa cushion as Grindelwald sits down besides him, raising his feet to place them on Grindelwald's lap. "There's something wrong with Tom."

Grindelwald grins in satisfaction, but his voice is calm and entirely understanding, "What happened?"

"He gets furious when I give any other student attention," Albus says, voice muffled by the cushion. "Stormed out of the room, and a few hours later the boy came to me and told me all the letters his parents had wrote him have been burned. And there was another girl, who asked for my help with her homework, and someone jumped her from the back later that night and cut her hair. And I know it sounds like childish pranks but…the boy, he gets homesick often, and his family letters are the only thing that make him feel better. And the girl, she's a bit of a snob, especially when it comes to her long, blond hair. He was targeting their weaknesses, destroying what he knows would hurt them the most. And there are worst things going on, darker things. Sometimes I just find puddles of blood, huge puddles like a student's been brutalized. But no one will tell me what happened. When I ask the students, they make up ridiculous lies like they did it to themselves as an experiment or a dog attacked them. They're scared. They're terrified of Tom. He's so smart, so devious. He's…a little like you, sometimes."

"I'm nothing like that boy," Grindelwald says immediately.

"Why? What's the difference between you?" Dumbledore turns around, studying Grindelwald.

Grindelwald shrugs, "I have a right to be possessive of you. I'm your lover."

Oddly, that gets a genuine laughter out of Dumbledore, who shakes his head and then sobers up and says, "What am I supposed to do with him? I'm almost a hundred percent sure that he did all these things, but no one will ever say anything about Tom, will never speak ill of him."

"They're afraid of him," Grindelwald doesn’t add _you idiot_ , but it's implicit in his tone.

"Yes, but I can't do anything without knowing what is actually going on," Dumbledore points out. "And even if I assume that all the worst things about Tom are true, what then? How am I supposed to help him, how am I supposed to fix him?"

"I don't think you can fix him," Grindelwald says slowly. "He killed his uncle when he was thirteen-"

"His uncle attacked him."

"You told me yourself that Riddle was…. overly violent in his approach."

"Yes, he was. But he had every reason to be angry-"

"Probably, but still…Speaking of his family, where's his father? Didn't you turn him?"

"Turned him, left him locked in a room with his father to eat him," Dumbledore mumbles. "Trust me, both those men deserve it."

"Hmm…"

"Gellert, you're not being helpful," Dumbledore snaps his fingers in front of Grindelwald's face. "What am I supposed to do with Tom?"

"I think you should kill him."

Dumbledore tilts his head slightly, then kicks Grindelwald in the dick, hard. Grindelwald yells, folding onto himself, face flushed with pain, then shivers, shakes himself off and glares at Dumbledore's, who's sat up and is glaring right back.

"You want me to kill a sixteen-year-old boy. Why do I even ask you for advice?" He shakes his head.

"Well, what _are_ you going to do? Unleash him on the world? That will not end well, I can assure you. Leave him in Hogwarts? The rest of your students will end up dead."

Dumbledore shakes his head, standing up, "I need to get back to Hogwarts. Thank you very much for not being helpful at all."

Grindelwald tilts his head, following Dumbledore with his eyes, "It won't end well, doing nothing, my darling."

***

The castle is cold quiet and dark when Dumbledore approaches. This time he doesn’t run, there's no point. You can smell that it's been over long ago, that the girl's been dead for hours before Dumbledore returned to the castle.

McGonagall is waiting for Dumbledore by the gate, and nods at him solemnly, walking besides him as they make their way inside.

"Tell me what you know," Dumbledore says quietly, hands clenching into fists.

McGonagall clears her throat, eyes shiny with tears, then says, "We woke up to the smell, by the time we got there…she was dead. Whoever did this found a way to cloak their own scent."

"Garlic, I can smell," Dumbledore says softly. "In the girls' bathroom. That's where she died."

"We found her-"

"In front of my office, I know, Minerva, I know," Dumbledore's voice is flat, as dead as Tom Riddle's was when Dumbledore found him. "Go to the bathroom anyways. That's where her blood is, it's just cloaked by garlic."

They come to a stop in front of Dumbledore's office, and that's where she is. A little girl, an eleven-year-old child, seated with her back against the wall and her own hands cradled in her hands. Her eye sockets are empty and her tongue and fingers are laying in front of her, forming a trail from the hallway up to Myrtle's body.

"What are you going to do?" McGonagall asks softly, looking away from the girl. But Dumbledore keeps his eyes on her, seemingly unable to look away. Or perhaps unwilling to turn away from his greatest failure and shame.

"I want you to go to the girls' bathroom on the second floor, that's where Myrtle was killed," Dumbledore tells her, voice still entirely dead.

McGonagall shivers slightly, "We need to know who did this."

"I'll find out," Dumbledore replies, but of course he already knows.

***

Tom Riddle is sleeping in the Room of Requirement, tucked into a blanket, face relaxed and sweet. But the hand that's fallen out of the blanket it covered in blood. The garlic in the room makes it impossible to smell the blood, but Harry doesn’t need to smell it to know who it belongs to. He understands, though, why Dumbledore hesitates and spends a few moments just looking down at Riddle, who is still a boy, at sixteen. And that becomes clear as Dumbledore looks at him and he mumbles in his sleep, turning around and curling into himself, just like a child. It's utterly terrifying, the fact that this child is capable of killing another child.

 _Maybe he's not a child_ , Harry muses as Dumbledore watches Riddle. _Maybe you don't get to be called a child if you're capable of murder, if you think that murder is a perfectly acceptable way to get your way. Or maybe he's very_ much _a child because he thinks that. It's a rather childish way of viewing the world, the thought that you can take care of all your problems by destroying them with blood._

"He's going to try and kill him now, isn't he?" Hermione says in a small voice, watching Dumbledore.

Harry swallows, remembering what Snape had told him, what seemed like years earlier, that Dumbledore had tried to kill Riddle when Riddle was sixteen. He can understand it, now, why Dumbledore tried to do it. Since Grindelwald is right, isn’t he? There is really nothing Dumbledore can do with Riddle, other then kill him. He can't let him roam the world, that would end badly. It _did_ end badly.

"Yeah," Harry replies as Dumbledore suddenly moves forward, launching himself at the sleeping Riddle, claws out, towards his chest. But when the claws are about an inch from skin, already tearing into cloth, Riddle's eyes fly open and his hand goes up to wrap around Dumbledore's throat. Dumbledore gasps as Riddle growls and pushes himself forward, slamming Dumbledore against the wall so powerfully Harry's sure everyone in the castle can hear the _boom_ that follows.

"T-Tom," Dumbledore gasps, eyes wide in horror, looking at Riddle's eyes, which have gone dead again, dead like they used to be dead. He shakes his head, grabbing Riddle's arms and pulling him against his chest, trying to choke him, but Riddle manages to free himself and slashes at Dumbledore's throat, claws opening veins.

"You're not even trying, are you?" Riddle says numbly, pushing himself away. "Grindelwald told me how you used to fight, why aren't you giving me your all? Am I not worthy of that? Is he the only one who is?"

Dumbledore shakes his head, "Tom-"

"Stop," Riddle straightens himself up. "You're going to regret not killing me, Professor. I'll make sure of that. I'm going to make sure you can never, ever forget me. You think the place you found me is hell? I'm going to make this world a living hell, just for you."

Dumbledore doesn’t seem able to move as Riddle leaves the room, following him with his eyes.

Harry and Hermione stare at him as he brings his knees up and hugs himself, crying softly. And then then the memory fades.

***

"What the fuck?" Harry gasps.

Hermione shakes her head, unable to say anything as she stumbles away from the pensieve and slumps down on the floor of Dumbledore's hut. It's over, the onslaught of memory, and she's seen far too much to process it all. She buries her face in the hands and groans.

"What the actual _fuck_ , Hermione?" Harry growls at her, as if _she's_ supposed to know.

"I don’t know," Hermione groans, looking up. "It's…a lot."

Harry shakes his head, "Yeah, you can fucking say that."

"Can you stop the cursing, please?" Hermione begs. "That's not helping!"

"Guys?" The hut door open and Ginny walks in, blinking. "What's going on?"

"Fuck!" Harry yells again, before storming out of the hut, leaving Ginny to stand with eye eyes at the doorway.

Ginny turns to Hermione, eyebrow raised, waiting for an explanation, and Hermione mumbles, "That…that summarizes it pretty well, actually."


	8. 1995

 

 _There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story_  
_ -Frank Herbert _

Older, she looks older. That's the first thought that comes to Hermione's mind when she sees her. It's ridiculous, because obviously she's gotten old, it's been nearly thirty years since she last saw her. But it's still a shock. She was so beautiful, once, strong and vibrant and seemingly unbreakable, and now she's an old and fragile woman, lying in a hospital bed with IVs attached to her arms and machines whirling besides her, providing her with oxygen and blood to survive. Hermione can smell the death in the air when she comes into the hospital room. It will come soon, she's just in time.

The woman blinks at her, and for one horrific moment Hermione wonders if maybe she's forgotten about her, or that she's become such a distant memory that her face's blurred.

"Are…are you ma child?"

Hermione feels the fear in her heart unravel and disappear, and she takes a step forward, slowly, and says, trying to keep tears out of her eyes, "Yes, I am."

Her mother smiles, and God, she missed that smile, she forgot how much she missed it, how safe it used to make her feel, "I knew you ain't dead, baby girl. They try to convince me you was."

"I know, I'm so, so sorry," Hermione comes even closer, wanting nothing more then to collapse on her mother and be hugged and comforted and kept safe. She holds herself back, though, not sure if it would be welcome. "I shouldn’t have ever left you."

"You all left, ma darlin'," Her mother says gently, voice raspy and weak. So different from the strong, powerful voice Hermione remembers from her childhood. "You and your brothers, all left. Children should leave their parents."

"I didn't have to go so far away," Hermione replies, and then her mother raises her arm, and her hand stays in the air, wobbling. Immediately Hermione rushes forward and presses her mother's hand in both of herself.

Her mother's eyes widen and she shivers, pulling Hermione closer, "You so cold, baby girl."

"I know."

"And you ain't grown old," Her mother adds.

"I know, things have…" Hermione shakes her head, unable to explain her life in the right way. What is she supposed to say? _Mama, I'm a vampire now_. Somehow that doesn’t feel as important right now as all the other things she has to tell her, to show her.

Her mother's hand grows stronger in her clutch and she says, "Your life took a very different direction from what I thought it'd be."

Hermione swallows, and her mother smiles softly, "But you happy, baby girl?"

"Usually," Hermione says quietly. "Sometimes I get so sad I can barely move, but not usually. Usually I'm so happy I need to pinch myself to make sure it's real."

The smile grows, "That's good, baby, that's good."

Hermione leans her head on her mother's shoulder, smiling her scent, inhaling it deeply, committing it to memory, knowing this will probably be the last time she smells her.

"Mama, there are two people I want you to meet," Hermione says into her mother's shoulder. "Can I bring them in?"

Her mother nods vigorously. Hermione turns her face to the door and says softly, "Children? Come in."

***

The woman is laying in the hospital bed when Scorpius comes into the room after Rosie. She looks a lot like Mum, but she's darker. Much, much darker then Rosie and him but also darker then Mum. She looks up when they come in, her eyes scanning both him and his sister. Mum walks over to them, and places a hand on each of their shoulders, bringing them closer.

The old woman smiles at Rosie, and Rosie smiles back. Rosie has the best smile, Scorpius always thought. He wishes he had a smile like hers.

"You look just like your mama," The old woman says softly, and then she turns to Scorpius and he feels himself growing tense, knowing full well that he doesn’t resemble his mother or sister at _all_. He doesn’t look like anyone, really. Though sometimes Mum says he looks like his father, but since he's never seen him, he wouldn't know.

But his grandmother is smiling softly and motions him forward, saying, "You a pretty one, baby boy."

"He looks like his daddy," Scorpius's Mum says, the hand on his shoulder giving a comforting squeeze.

The old woman's smile grows sad as she says, "Did you lose him, darlin'?"

"A long time ago," Mum replies, the hand on Scorpius's shoulder tightening.

"They beautiful, your babies," Scorpius is pushed forward by his mother as his grandmother reaches out for him. He looks down at the hand held out to him and swallows, not wanting to touch her. He knows his skin is very cold for humans and she looks so very weak and he doesn’t want to hurt her.

"It's all right, Scorpius, go to her," Mum whispers into his ear, and if Mum says it's all right, then it will be all right.

When he hesitantly touches his grandmother's hand, he's bracing himself for a flinch, the way Susan flinches when she's touched without warning, but a calloused hand wraps around his strongly and she smiles, "You always so cold, like your mama?"

Scorpius nods, and his grandmother, still holding on to his hand, turns to Rosie and takes her hand with her free one, getting a small smile out of Scorpius's twin.

"What did you name them?"

Mum smiles at him and Rosie, that proud smile that she only ever gave the two of them, "She's Rose."

"Rose," The old woman says in wonder, giving Roe a dazzling smile and gets one in return. "She named for me?"

"She is," Mum leans over and kisses Rosie on the head. "We call her Rosie."

"My Uncle Harry says I'm the feisty one," Rosie grins and Scorpius gawks at her. He can barely move, and Rosie looks as relaxed as usual. Well, Rosie does always tell him he's too shy.

"Are you?" Their grandmother laughs. "Your mama was a feisty one, too, when she was a girl."

Rosie grins again, looking up at their mother.

"And this is Scorpius," Mum points to him.

"Scorpius?" The old woman-Rose, her name is Rose- frowns in puzzlement.

"It means scorpion, in Latin…it's because of his daddy," Mum clears her throat and adds, "But his second name is Hugo."

The older Rose looks at him softly and says, "For your daddy."

"Yeah, for my daddy," Mum's eyes are glittering with tears and her throat is rough.

"He was, you know," His grandmother says, her hold on Scorpius's hand tightening. "He _was_ your daddy."

"I know," Mum replies softly, and something seems to melt in her, a tension that Scorpius hadn't even noticed slipping away.

"He loved you so much, darlin'. As much as he loved your brothers. You were his daughter, his baby girl."

Scorpius shivers slightly. He wonders whose baby boy _he_ is, other then Mum. Is he his father's baby boy, even though his father never met him, has been dead long before his and Rosie's birth? Rosie says yes, she says yes very vehemently. He's not so sure.

"I'm taking the children to his grave, before we leave," Mum says quietly.

"Will we come back to see her, next time we come here?" Rosie asks.

Mum hesitates, then their grandmother says, "I won't be alive for much longer, baby girl. But come here, you two, give your grandma a hug."

Rosie jumps up immediately, engulfing their grandmother in a huge hug. Scorpius looks away, towards their mother, who catches his gaze and nods at him, coming over and giving him a soft kiss on the forehead, calming him down somewhat.

Their grandmother whispers something in Rosie's ear, and Scorpius very purposely hums to himself so he doesn’t hear. It's none of his business what their grandmother tells Rosie. Whatever it was, it makes Rosie hiccup a little and she lets go of the older Rose and detaches her hand, going over to Mum and hugging her hard, burying her face in Mum's stomach. Then their grandmother pulls Scorpius forward and he blinks at her.

"You don’t like hugs, do you, baby boy?" She smiles slyly.

He hears Rose snicker behind him, but he has eyes only for his grandmother, who has such kind eyes, that make him feel as safe as Mum's.

"Do you really have to die?" He asks quietly.

"Scorpius…" Mum sighs, but he doesn’t turn to look at her.

"But she doesn’t," Scorpius insists, "She doesn’t _have_ to die." And he just met her, and he likes how she looks at Mum, with so much love, like Mum looks at them, and he wants his Mum to always have someone to look at her like that.

"I don’t mind dyin', baby boy," Rose says calmly. "I lived a long life and I'm tired. It's time for me to go meet God."

"Oh," Rosie says in a small voice. "But you still don’t need to die."

"No, she does," Scorpius says, immediately understanding, and turns to look at Mum. "Doesn’t she?"

She does, because she doesn’t want to live and you can't force someone to live when they don’t want to. It doesn’t work.

Mum looks away, hugging Rosie closer, and Scorpius's grandmother says, "Thank you for bringing ma grandbabies to meet me."

Mum nods and comes over, putting him away gently, "Rosie, Scorpius, will you go wait for me outside the hospital? I…I need to talk to your grandmother alone."

"Do we have t-" Rosie starts, but Scorpius puts a hand on her back, stopping her. She looks up at him and he shakes his head to her mutely. Rosie swallows, placing her hand in his and walking out of the room with him.

"Mum should turn her," Rosie says, as the two of them walk together.

"She can't, she won't," Scorpius replies.

"If you think she can't turn because she believes in a human God, then you're stupid. Mum didn't believe in our Gods at first. She still doesn’t, really."

"Yeah," Scorpius says softly. "And when we go to church, Mummy will is sad, a lot."

***

"When the door closes behind the children, Hermione puts her head on her mother's lap and sigh deeply when she feels her mother's hand caressing her curls. She closes her eyes, relishing in the familiar feeling. She missed this.

"Your babies are-"

"They're magnificent," Hermione mumbles, unable to not smile at the mere thought of her twins. "They're the light of my life."

She looks up to see her mother smiling at her gently.

"Before you were born ma life was dark, but the moment I saw you I knew that everything would be just fine, that you and I would be all right."

"And we were," Hermione mumbles. "Me, and you, until Daddy came."

"Your Daddy didn't save us," Rose smiles down at her.

"No, you saved us," Hermione says. "I'm alive today because of you."

Her mother leans over to press their foreheads together. They stay like that for a few moments and then her mother says, "They baptized?"

Hermione's not surprised by the shift in conversation. She gets the feeling her mother's been waiting to ask that question as soon as she saw the twins, with the amulets stringed on their necks, the ones Remus made for them at their birth, with the symbols of the Four Gods on them.  

"Yes, I had them baptized," She replies, truthfully. "And we go to church, but not every Sunday."

"But you also taught them about their daddy's faith, no?"

Hermione nods, turning her face back into her mother's lap, "They need it. Everyone around them…everyone but me believes in their daddy's gods. And it's the only connection I can give them, to their daddy and his family." She doesn’t actually know what happened to Draco's mother, being one of the Death Eaters that disappeared after the war ended, but even if she were alive Hermione doubts she'd want anything to do with the twins. Other then try and kill them, perhaps.

"There's nothing wrong with that, baby girl, they should know about their daddy's family."

"I know, Mama, I know," Hermione sighs deeply. "But I just wish…I wish I could give them one clear view of the world. Sometimes I feel like they're trapped in the middle. Especially Scorpius. He's…so, so very sensitive. It confuses him."

"You give them stability, you give them love, that's all you can really ever give them, darlin'," Her mother's hands tighten around her. "In this crazy world of ours, love is the only thing you can give."

***

Gellert likes the North Pole. He likes that it's so cold here that no humans can live here. In fact, other then the animals, there's no one out here but him. He's brought enough blood with him to live here alone until the winter is over.

He likes how dark it is, there is no day here, it's always night. He can go out whenever he wants, not having to worry about the sun weakening him. He likes the animals here. So many of them had never seen a person before and are not scared of him, simply blinking when he approaches them, not running away, more confused than anything. It’s nice, not to be a hunter for once.

The North Pole is nice, he likes it, he can't blame it for the rot he's currently in.

He's been regretting killing Vinda Rosier lately. Well, he's been regretting a lot of things. He's been regretting promising Albus not to go looking for him, and he's been regretting keeping that promise. But killing Rosier is one of his greatest regrets. He's used to not having Al with him for long stretches of time. He hates it, desperately, but he's used to it, knows how to survive it. In the past, though, he's had his followers to fall back on. Loyalty and worship are not as good as love, but it's something, at least. Now he has neither of those things. Rosier was his best follower, and she's gone now. So, until his lover returns to him, he's all alone.

With a sigh, Grindelwald collapses onto his mattress and closes his eyes. He's been living in an abandoned scientific lab that he's surrounded with garlic in case any other vampire happens to come by, that has just enough electricity to power one refrigerator for his blood bags, and that's really all he needs. Most of the time he spends fantasizing about what he'll do when Al returns to him (he doesn’t even entertain the idea that Albus won't return, he refuses to engage in the premise), how he'd kiss and hold him and fuck him and have Al fuck him, how he'd lick every inch of his skin and then have Albus do that thing he does with his tongue in Gellert's ass… He lets his hand slink down under his pants, the thought of his love's eyes enough to get him hard.  

He quickly jerks himself off, really only to relieve the pressure, not able to feel any kind of pleasure out of it. Ten years is a very long time to have to service yourself. Sometimes he thinks that if the opportunity presented itself he would sleep with someone else, but then he feels a powerful stab of guilt that he even considered the possibility of cheating on Al. It makes him furious at himself, and furious at Albus for being gone so long that he has to resort to these things, even if it's only in his mind.

"Fuck, fuck," He mumbles, grabbing a pillow and pulling it over his face and closes his eyes, wanting to fall into sleep but far to wound up to do so. It's been like that for the last few months, his body always tense and seemingly never able to relax. He sleeps for an hour at a time, waking up from dreams with a hard on. His dreams always revolve around Al, he always sees him, laughing and moving around elegantly. Albus always did everything elegantly, every movement he makes has a weight to it, a sense of control. He misses that. He misses everything, he's desperate with loneliness and pain. He wants his lover back, is that so much to ask?

Gellert pulls the pillow off and sits up, rubbing his face. Now what? He's slept for maybe three hours during the last forty-eight hours, and he's exhausted but unable to sleep. With a grunt, Gellert pushes himself up from the mattress and walks towards the fridge, taking out a blood bag and sitting down on the floor, facing the wall, and drinks slowly, trying to take as long as possible. Drinking is one of the only things he has to do lately, other than wonder the frozen tundra aimlessly, so he tries to take as long as possible when he feeds. Boredom is also a huge problem in the North Pole. Maybe he should leave, go back to civilization. But civilization doesn’t have Al, either, so really what's the point?

All right, now he's just wallowing in self-pity.

"I'm pathetic," He tells himself. "Pathetic."

"Maybe a little. Your clothes are disgusting."

Gellert's first thought is, _great, now I'm hallucinating_. Then he blinks and slowly turns around.

Al is standing behind him, dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, his feet covered in heavy boots. His beautiful blue eyes full of worry as they look down at him, the blue piercing right into Gellert's heart. Gods, he's stunning, dazzling, magnificent, everything about him is perfect, just _perfect_. And he's there, he's present and real. He's not in Gellert's mind, isn't a construct of memory. He's here.

"You came," Gellert says, dumbly, knowing he's looking like a gaping fish. He really can't bring himself to care.

Albus's whole body softens and he takes a step forward, "I told you I'd come."

"I…yes, you did say that," Gellert mumbles.

"But you didn't believe me," Al replies, feet planted firmly in place.

"I believed you!" Gellert protests immediately, but suddenly he's unable to talk anymore, unable to do anything but jump on Albus, wrap his legs around Al's hips. He puts his arms around his lover's shoulders and leans his head forward, so their foreheads touch. He doesn't even want to kiss him, at least not immediately. He just wants to feel him, to touch him. He feels like if he lets go Al might disappear again.

"I missed you so much," Albus mumbles against his skin, hands curling around Gellert. "I missed you so, so much."

He wants to ask, _then why did you leave_? But he knows perfectly well why Al left, and he doesn’t want to think about Riddle, or any of the other many things that have broken them apart in the past. They don’t matter now, they never actually matter. Because in the end of the day they always end up back like this, where they belong, so close together, bodies molded into each other, the way it should be. If Gellert had his way, he'd spend eternity wrapped in Albus's arms.

So, instead he just whispers back, "I missed you too," and attaches his mouth to Albus's. He feels his lover shutter against him, and his mouth opens up under him. He feels Al's tongue worm it's way beyond his teeth and his claws come out without planning to, slashing at Albus's shirt, tearing it into ribbons and exposing his lover's chest. it looks exactly the same, he hasn’t changed at all. He hasn't changed, physically at least, for thousands of years. His hair hasn't changed, because he knows Gellert prefers it short. Gellert gets a thrill in his spine at that simple show of love, that even though they haven't seen each other in ten years Albus has kept his hair the same length. He wants to tell Al that, to impress on him how much he loves him, how deeply he missed him, how ecstatic he is that Albus's back with him, but all that would require freeing up his mouth and he really can't be bothered to do that at the moment. So instead he shows his love by pressing his tongue deeper into Albus's mouth, mapping his teeth and tongue and the back of his mouth and the top and licking at the insides of his cheeks.

He's so lost in the kiss, in the familiar taste and feel of it, that he doesn’t realize for a moment that they've tumbled on the mattress, and he's on top of Al, who's pressed into the mattress. He pulls himself away to straddle Al's hip and look down at him. Al looks at him adoringly, his eyes caressing Gellert's body softly. Gellert detaches his hands from Al's and puts them on Albus's chest, running his fingers over Albus's skin, running up to his mouth.

"Do you have anything here that can be used as-"

Gellert raises an eyebrow, "I didn't bring any lube with me to the North Pole, no."

"You didn't think I'd come here, hmm?"

Gellert pinches one of Albus's nipples, gaining a hiss out of him, and says, "You were gone for ten years, my lovely. Why would I think you'd come to the _North Pole_?"

Albus shrugs, "You think I understand what goes on in that crazy mind of yours?"

Gellert rolls his eyes and lean forward, "Oh, my darling, your bedroom talk needs work."

"Do you really want to have a conversation now, Gellert?" Albus asks, starting to sit up.

Feeling a fleeting sense of panic, Gellert places his hands on Albus's chest and pushes him back onto the mattress, "Don't move. Stay. I know what we'll use."

He slips off Albus's body and rushes over to the fridge, taking out a bag of blood and jumps back onto the mattress, sitting down besides Albus.

"Blood?" Albus raises an eyebrow and then shrugs, laying his head back down on the mattress. "I suppose that could work."

"Your enthusiasm is inspiring," Gellert grins, moving his hand to Al's pants. He sees his love bit his lip and look up, eyes hooded. He unbuckles Al's pants and pulls the buckle off, tugging his pants and underwear down to his knees.

"Gellert," Albus says softly and sits up, pulling himself backwards so his back is against the wall. He motions Gellert over and grabs the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer so again their foreheads are touching.

"I'm sorry I left," Albus mumbles against his skin and pulls him into a tender hug.

"It's all right, my love," Gellert smells Albus's scent and detaches himself. He's already hard and he wants to be inside Al _immediately_.

He positions himself between Al's legs again, pushing Albus's thighs apart and looking at Albus's familiar cock. Gods, it's beautiful. He grasps Al's length and gives it a sharp tug, eliciting a groan from his lover as he buckles forward.

"I swear to the Gods, Gellert, if you're planning on going slow-"

"Not to worry, love, I don’t think I don’t think I can last for a long time," Gellert mumbles and quickly takes off his shirt before leaning down so his mouth is an inch away from Albus's cock. Before Albus can say anything, Gellert licks the length, eliciting a gasp and shiver.

"So beautiful," Gellert whispers. "You're so beautiful, my love. My only love."

Albus whimpers as Gellert swallows him whole. He feels him buckling into his mouth, but places his hands on Albus's thighs to push him back to the ground. Albus growls in frustration, but Gellert keeps him pinned as he works him over, feeling him grow hard underneath his ministrations. But before Al can come he takes his mouth out and pulls himself towards Al's mouth so their bodies are aligned.

Albus catches his mouth eagerly, claiming it with vigor. He has the right to, of course. He's the one person in the whole entire world who has the right to claim Gellert as his. That was why Rosier had to die. She tried to claim him.

But he only belongs to Al.

Gellert places one hand besides Albus's head on the wall while his other goes down to his cock. It only takes a few moments before Al comes all over Gellert's chest, and he grins triumphantly and moves back towards the lower regions of Albus's body while his lover shivers in the aftermath of his orgasm.

"Gods, I missed this," Albus mumbles, eyes half closed like he's about to fall asleep.

"So," Gellert says conversationally as he opens the blood bag and pours some on his fingers. "Where did you go?"

"Jordan, first-ah, fuck!" Albus buckles forward when Gellert slips a finger into him. "Fuck, warn me next time!"

"Jordan, hmm?" Gellert moves the finger deeper in before adding another one in.

"Jordan…and then…then Saudi Aribia," Albus gasps, grabbing onto Gellert's hair as the two fingers begin scissoring.

"So, the Middle East," Gellert puts his other hand on the back of Albus head and pulls him closer. "Has it changed much since the last time we were there?"

Albus groans. Gellert can see that he's trying to think clearly, and he doesn’t want him thinking, so he redoubts his efforts and slips a third finger in, noticing with no small amount of pride that Albus's gotten hard again.

"Oh, love," He purrs, and Albus shutters against him. "You really _have_ missed me, haven't you?"

Al just shivers against him.

Gellert pulls slightly away, taking his fingers out, and Albus lets out a soft little whine at the loss, slamming his head backwards on the wall.

"Hurry up," Albus growls as Gellert slips his pants and underwear off and coats his member in blood before positioning himself, pulling Al's legs over his shoulder. Albus collapses into the mattress, hands going up to grabs Gellert's arms. "Just fucking hurry up, you _asshole_."

"I love you to, dearest," Gellert replies, pushing into Al gently, and he groans. Its feels just as good as he remembers, just as tight and perfect and _known_. He can remember how it was at the beginning between the two of them, the first times, fumbling in the dark (figuratively, though also literally on several occasions), everything a new experience. He had been scared, back then, that as time went by they would grow bored with each other's bodies, with exploring one another. What had happened was the exact opposite. As the years went by they had simply learned one another better, learned what each other enjoyed in bed, how to make the other scream. They had never grown bored with each other, and if they haven't after nearly two thousand years, Gellert expects they never will.

"You feel so good, my love," Gellert gasps, thrusting into Albus. Al grins up at him and grasps his ass, pulling Gellert even deeper into him. "Oh, fuck. _Fuck_ …"

He thrusts, faster and faster, as Albus grabs his face and pulls him into a painfully powerful kiss, biting into his lip and breaking skin. His blood trickles into Albus's mouth and his lover swallows the sticky liquid, and the sight of his bodily fluids swallowed into his lover's body is enough to make them come together. He spills into Albus, shuttering and collapsing onto his chest, blood and semen mixing in between them. Albus's fingers trail his spine and he shivers at the sensation. It's somehow even more pleasurable then the orgasm, that little intimate moment.

"Al?"

"Hmm?" Albus mumbles, pressing a kiss on his forehead.

"I love you so much, you know that?"

He feels the hands tightening around him, "I know."

***

"This is my father, your grandfather," Hermione says, kneeling in front of a tombstone with her two children at either side of her. "Hugo Granger."

There's a moment of silence as the two children lean against her, and she suddenly feels like they're much younger then their nine years, like they're as small as they used to be, when they knew nothing and would look at her with wonder, waiting for her to lead the way. They've grown, though, they have their own minds and own thoughts. They don't go where she leads, anymore, but where they want. They've been walking their own paths, more and more as they grow and evolve. She can remember a time when it felt like her babies were an extension of herself, like they hadn’t full exited the womb when they were born. When they were hungry, she knew even before they started crying because her body would ache as though it were hungry as well, and when they woke in the middle of the night she would wake a moment before.

She prefers them like this, though. She always loved them, loved them desperately, but now she's proud of them. Now she looks at them and can feel calm, knowing that when they day comes that they leave her, they'll be capable of defending themselves. Capable of facing the cruel world and surviving.

"What about the other one?" Scorpius asks, breaking the silence.

Hermione's heart skips a beat, and Rosie says, quietly, "Your biological father. Is he alive?"

"I don’t know, sweethearts," Hermione replies, just as quiet as her darling daughter.

"Don't you want to know?" Rosie asks. "He hurt your mum, don't you want to hurt him?"

 _He deserves it_ , Tom Riddle whispers in her mind, and she shivers at the memory of his cold eyes when he asked for vengeance against his father.

"Sometimes, I do," Hermione says, truthfully. _Sometimes I want to find him and shove something hard into his ass, make him scream and cry the way he made her scream and cry. Sometimes I want to feed from him, drain him dry and leave his body naked in front of the church steps_.

"Then why don’t you?" Scorpius asks, voice small.

"Because just because he's a bad person doesn’t mean I also have to be."

"Oh!" Rosie nods. "Well, you _are_ a good person, Mummy."

And at the convection in her daughter's voice, Hermione has to burry her face in Rosie's hair to hide her tears.

***

Gellert wakes up from the first good sleep he's hand in months, wrapped in Albus's arms. He shifts slightly, yawns softly and opens his eyes.

Albus is looking down at him thoughtfully, his head propped on a pillow, two fingers carding through Gellert's hair.

"You slept for nearly fourteen hours," Al says quietly. "You must have been exhausted."

Gellert buries his face in Albus's chest, "I haven't been sleeping well lately."

"Ah."

"I sleep better with you."

"I know," Albus shifts, pulling himself and Gellert up against the wall. Gellert sighs and pulls away, stretching.

"It was a good night, love," He grins and leans over to kiss Albus softly on the lips. Albus's hand comes up to cradle the back of his head and pull him closer. Gellert opens his mouth to let Albus's tongue in, but Albus seems content to keep their kiss gentle and sweet. Gellert moves to straddle Albus's hips and curls his hands around Albus's shoulders.

Gellert smiles and detaches himself from Albus's mouth and presses their foreheads together. Albus frowns at him, looking down. He looks back up and raises an eyebrow.

"Morning wood, isn't that what it's called?" Gellert grins, pulling slightly away.

"It's not morning," Albus says mildly, running fingers down to grip Gellert's stiff cock. Gellert groans in pleasure as Albus pushes him backwards onto the mattress and begins stroking him slowly, first, before going faster and faster, gripping his member in a death grip. Gellert bites his lip, grabbing the mattress and trying to hold out as long as possible, wanting to keep that hand on him for as long as he can. He growls and lets out a string of curses.

"Gellert?" Albus mumbles. "Are you going to come for me now?"

"Not…not yet," Gellert groans, reaching out to grab Albus's hair and pulling it to his cock. "Please suck me, love."

He feels Albus laughing against his sensitive skin and shivers again before Albus suddenly swallows him whole. He rocks his whole body into Albus's mouth, shoving his dick deeper into Al's mouth. He comes in Albus's mouth after a few minutes of menstruations and Al swallows it all before looking up and grinning.

"I'm going to fuck you, now," Al says with a quiet sort of determination. It makes Gellert grow stiff with arousal and he lays back down on the mattress.

"All right, take me from behind," He replies. "Get some blood."

"Yes, sir," Albus replies before a weight is taken off of the mattress and he hears the fridge door open and Albus's weight returning to the mattress. He spreads his legs as wide as they would go, shivering when Al's tongue slips around his hole. "Oh, _fuck_."

Gellert grabs fistfuls of Al's hair as his lover begins to devour his hole. He groans as the tongue goes in and out, sending shivers off pleasure down his spine. Then the tongue is taken out and he feels blood trickling down into his hole before, slowly and gently, a finger is inserted in.

"Fuck, fuck, I missed this," Gellert growls. "This is so much better then doing it myself."

"I'm better then masturbation," Albus says dryly, slipping two more fingers in and starting to pump in and out in a slow pace. "What a compliment, Gellert."

"Just shut up and fuck me," Gellert pushes his body closer to Al. The pumping increases in pace and Albus's hand goes around the back of his head and pulls him up. Slowly, Albus takes his fingers out and Gellert flips himself immediately, placing himself on his knees and hands and looks backwards at Albus. "Go on, then."

Albus rolls his eyes, but Gellert can see the dark arousal in his eyes and his stiffness. Another shutter of arousal goes through Gellert as Albus positions himself behind him and pushes into him, his body covering Gellert's, placing his chin against Gellert's shoulder.

Gellert groans, bringing up a hand to cup Albus's face. Albus pants as he kisses Gellert full on the mouth, beginning to thrust into him.

"Fast, fast," Gellert mumbles into Albus's mouth as he's fucked. Albus groans and thrusts harder and harder, faster and faster and Gods, it feels so fucking _good_. "So, so good, my love. You're so good, you feel so good inside of me."

"You-you-you to," Albus gasps and kisses Gellert's neck before sitting up, pulling Gellert up with him and cradling him in his arms, spilling into him. They scream out together when Albus comes. But when Albus tries to pull away, Gellert grabs his hands and pulls the softening dick deep into him, wanting it to stay there as long as possible. He leans his head on Albus's shoulder, sniffing at Albus's neck.  

They stay like that for a moment, as physically close as two people can be, until Albus moves, slipping out of Gellert's stretched hole and slumping down on the mattress. He pulls Gellert closer to him and curls his arms around Gellert. Gellert straddles his lover's waist and pulls away from Albus's chest to look him in the eye, caressing his ears thoughtfully.

"Have you thought, what you want to do now?" Albus asks.

Gellert frowns at that, "What do you mean?"

"I mean…I assume you don't want to stay here for the long term," Albus says hesitantly. "In the North Pole, I mean."

"No," Gellert agrees, trying to understand what's making Albus so nervous, for lack of the better word. "Why?"

"Because…" Albus chews his lip. "Because I can't go back to England, to the Order and Hogwarts. Not yet, at least. Maybe not ever."

Gellert nods, "I understand that."

"So…" Albus sighs deeply, banging his head against the wall. "So, I was wondering…"

"Al, love, why don't you just ask me what you clearly want to ask?"

"All right, fine," Albus grabs Gellert's wrists. "I know you love Europe, and being with your army, and I know you feel you have... a purpose there, something you need to do. But I can't fight with you like that anymore, and I know that if we go back to Europe, we'll just fight again. So, I have a request."

"A request."

"I want to go with you. Somewhere far away from Europe."

"You want to go on a trip?" Gellert can't help the huge smile that comes on his face. "A world tour of some sort?"

"Yeah… you can say that," Albus nods, slowly. "If you can't, I understand."

"Can’t?" Gellert frowns, hurt. "What do you mean, can’t?"

" _Can_ you live without your army? Without their adoration, without their love?"

Gellert pinches Albus's ear hard and says, "I don't need them, as long as I have you. I have _you_ back, so I don't need _them_."

Albus smiles at that, almost shyly, and Gellert adds, "So, we’ll go. We'll disappear together, just you and me, and no one else will ever know where we are."

His lover grins at that and pulls him into a fierce kiss. Gellert melts into the kiss, all thoughts of his people, the past and the future slipping out of his mind. The only thing that he can think of is that Albus is here, so beautiful and present and his. His world is complete, he doesn’t need anything else. It's odd that he once thought that he would feel complete if he could change the world to suit his needs. But how boring would that be? This is much more interesting, much more engaging, he loves this far more.

"I love you," Gellert whispers into Albus's ears. "Always."

***

"Come on, Suzie!" Teddy grins at her, seated on a red sled, getting ready to push himself down from the roof of Grimmauld Place. "Go down with me."

"I'm not going down with you," Susan replies, trying to stay calm. "I would die."

"You're not going to die, Susan," Teddy tells her sternly. "We're going to hit the bushes-"

"If we miss the bushes and we both break our legs or something, you'll be in pain for minutes and I'll be in a cast for weeks," Susan reminds him, unable to stop herself from grinning. "That happened before, remember, Edward?"

"I remember," Teddy grins. "But that was not my fault, you know."

To be fair, it wasn’t. A few years earlier, when Susan was eight and Teddy was ten, Teddy had jumped off the stairs in The Burrow, breaking both his legs when he hit the ground, and Susan had followed suit, breaking one of hers.

"No, that was not your fault," Susan sits down on the roof, next to Teddy, looking out at the landscape before them. "Go on, go down. I'll sit here and laugh at you."

"Good ide-" Teddy stops and grins. "Suze, I can smell Auntie Hermione and the twins."

Susan smiles at that, patting her brother on the knee and jumping up to go down the stairs and out the front door of the house. Hermione and her children, along with Harry and Ginny and theirs, who lived in England most of the time, had been staying at Grimmauld Place for the past few months with Susan and her family, and Hermione had decided to go see her mother after learning that she was dying of cancer. But Susan hadn't been expecting them to be back so soon.

"Rosie, Scorpius!" Teddy opens his arms as the twins approach and Rosie comes forward to get a huge hug. "How was it? How was Alabama? Was there a lot of sun? Was-"

"One question at a time," Rosie commands and pulls Teddy away, starting to talk quickly. Scorpius smiles gently at Susan and comes up to her to give her a hug. Like all of his hugs, it's gentle and almost shy, like he's afraid to hurt her with his touch.

"Hi, Scorpius."

"Hi, Susan," Scorpius mumbles as Hermione comes up. "We met out grandmother, but she died."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Susan mumbles.

"It's all right," Scorpius shrugs, detaching himself and walking away to join Teddy and Rosie.

Hermione, wearing gloves, cups Susan's face and turns her head up to look her straight in the eye, worry in her eyes.

"I'm fine," Susan says immediately. Hermione gets like that once in a while, suddenly worried about Susan as though she were a delicate flower or a china doll. Susan gets it, she does, how Hermione feels responsible for what happened to Susan's biological family, but sometimes it gets on her nerves. She's fine. Her life is good, her fathers love her. And she's not broken, what happened to her in the past, what happened to her first family, it hurts her when she thinks of it, but most of the time…well, most of the time she lives in the present.

"I know that, sweetheart," Hermione surprises her by saying. "But…indulge me in this. Let me ask you, even if you are all right."

Susan frowns and then nods, "Ok, I’ll indulge you. If it will make you feel better. I don’t mind doing that for you, because I love you."

Hermione hugs her and kisses her forehead. Her lips are cold, but it feels warm to Susan all the same. It's always like that with the vampires she loves. She knows it's cold, she knows her skin is not compatible with that of vampires, but what she knows and what she feels are two different things.

And what she feels is that touching the people she loves makes her warm inside.

***

"Hi, 'Mione," Harry says as Hermione comes into the living room with their gaggle of children following in her wake. Hermione gives him a soft smile and falls down besides him on the couch, snuggling against him. "How was Alabama?"

Hermione sighs deeply, "It was good. I'm glad I went. But…"

"Yeah," Harry mumbles, watching as his eldest, James, goes over to the TV and slip in a cassette. He turns around and clears his throat to get everyone's attention.

"All right, everyone," The seven-year-old says with gusto. "On this Movie Night we will be watching a new movie called _Toy Story_. It's a story. About a toy."

"Brilliant, James," Rosie says dryly.

Albus and Scorpius, who are sitting next to each other on a love seat, snicker together. They're always sitting together, those two. Always playing together and hanging out around each other.

"Hush, hush, Rosie," James shushes with half closed eyes. "Shall we begin?"

"Is it a Hollywood movie?" Albus asks. "Because I thought you were going to choose a French movie."

James frowns, "Why would I chose a French movie?"

"That's what you said!"

"I think," Harry says mildly, "That James was being sarcastic when he said, _oh sure, I'll pick a French movie,_ after Susan asked him if he'd chose a movie that wasn't a typical Hollywood movie."

Ginny, seated with Lily on her lap, sighs at that. Albus shrugs, looking slightly disappointed, until Scorpius whispers something in his ear that gets a smile out of him. Harry wishes he knew what Scorpius said to him. Sometimes he wishes he could understand his son the way Scorpius does. But maybe he doesn't need to. After all, his son, at five, is slowly becoming a person in his own right that doesn’t need his father in every part of his life.

"Harry," Hermione says quietly, giving his hand a squeeze. "You're staring at the children."

"Am I?" Harry looks around them, Teddy and Susan, Hermione's twins and his own three children, all of them vibrant and happy, children full of light and innocence and he feels a sudden swell of pride, that they've managed to create this for them, a world where they don't need to know what causes the nightmares that force them awake in the middle of the day, gasping and unable to fall back asleep. A world where his sons don't need to know that their mother sometimes wakes up thinking that she's burning up, a world where Hermione's twins can feel safe enough to test the various beliefs thrown at them, and know that if they one day choose to reject one of them, they will still be accepted and loved.

He's glad that they have this, but sometimes it worries him. Sometimes he thinks that maybe his children are too safe, that maybe they're failing them in that regard. He can't help but imagine that one day the safe world they've built will come crushing down, and then his children will not be prepared. And he knows it's silly, that his children are strong, that they will only grow stronger, and that at seven five and three they don't need to worry about dangers, and won’t need to worry for a long time yet. But knowing something and believing something are two very different things, and sometimes, when he sees his children laugh and play, he can't help but feel terrified at the thought that if something happened right then, if they lost him and Ginny the way he lost his mother, that they will not be ready.

As if he can feel his father's thoughts, Harry's middle child stirs and comes over to him to sit on his lap and hug his neck.

"Hi, bud," Harry smiles down at him and kisses his head.

"Don't be sad, Daddy," Al says quietly.

"I'm not sad," Harry replies, only half lying. "I'm just really glad we're all here, together." And that part is not a lie. That part is truer than anything else in the world.

Albus looks at him, his wise eyes scanning his father, and then he smiles sweetly and says, "We're all right, though, right?"

"Yes," Harry smiles, and Albus nods, settling on his lap to watch the movie as it starts. And they are. They're all right. And maybe not all is well, but most is, the important things are. And that's all that really matters.


End file.
